Penalties
by JMK758
Summary: In 2035, Su Lin Palmer, daughter of Jimmy and Michelle, assists NCIS in investigating murder and witchcraft. She was introduced in 'Into the Light' and appeared in 'Otherworld'. Current favorites also appear.
1. MJ

This is the third story spun off my NCIS series of mysteries in which Private Investigator Su Lin Palmer, daughter of Jimmy and Michelle Palmer, appears. She was introduced in 'Into the Light', which depicted the final day of one of NCIS' most celebrated agents.  
She began her own series of mysteries in the episode 'Otherworld'. It offered a glimpse into the NCIS of the future, in an undefined date in the late 2030's. She is in her mid-20's.  
Many familiar faces continue to appear, this is a speculation of what life might be like for our intrepid Investigators in the mysterious world of the future.  
As usual, I'll say that Belisarius Productions owns NCIS, I am not making a penny off the concept or characters and that any persons appearing herein are fictional and bear no relation to any person, living, dead or yet to be born.

Penalties  
by JMK758  
Chapter One  
M.J.

It was a dark and stormy night…. Actually, it's a glorious early autumn afternoon, 68 degrees and the sun shines brightly in an azure sky lightly dappled with cottony clouds. It's a day made not for work but for pleasant contemplation on the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything. That my life lately reads like an old Douglas Adams novel suits everything.

But to the point, it's two in the afternoon and I'm sitting back facing, to the left of my desk, the bay window which overlooks the best the best view of Washington. I'm high enough on Virginia Avenue North to see from Lafayette Square to the Ellipse. I'm just letting my mind start to drift when the intercom on my desk speaks to me. "Su?"

I turn the swivel chair, attentive and anticipating a nice, juicy case. "Yes, Tina?"

"Your father on one."

x

Well, not a case but hardly unwelcome. I slide aside the cover on my desk that protects the inlaid computer, touch the white button next to the screen and dad's face appears on it. "Hi, dad!" It's amazing how seeing him, even after a few days, shines a bright light on the universe.

"Hi, Princess," he looks over the top of the half-glasses he still has to wear for fine work, "busy?" His serious tone, despite the fact that he's calling his favorite – okay, only – daughter, wipes the smile off my face. He's in Autopsy at NCIS and past his left shoulder I can see part of his partner; just her head and shoulders. My attention goes up another notch. Samantha Marsters is the happiest person I've ever met, and if she isn't smiling about something, the situation is really grim.

I know, however, that it's not disastrous. Mom's job is utterly dangerous at times, but they aren't _that_ grim. Furthermore, I'd have felt anything far in advance of any possible visiphone call. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not discussing this with you, but I have a body I'd like your opinion on."

I cut off a laugh and don't ask if he's taking his insulin; there's no humor in his eyes and the translation is too easy. I'm not a Federal Agent but the Chief Medical Examiner of NCIS has found something so outré it merits a call to a Private Investigator. Furthermore, he's not doing this officially and though he likes the 'cloak and dagger' stuff, this must be really out of the ordinary.

"How soon do you need me?" I've a way I can be there in seconds by using my Scrying mirror, sort of my personal 'transporter beam', unpleasant though it is. Using it, walking through blackness spotted by bursts of eldritch energy of every color flashing past me at insane speeds, scares the willies out of me. I usually make the trip through the vortex with my eyes clenched.

"Don't break any traffic laws; I'll let 'Pass and ID' know you're coming."

Okay, important but not urgent. I put on my best smile. "See you soon."

x

When the screen goes dark I slide the cover back over the computer and go through the door to the outer office. "Tina?"

"Going to NCIS?"

It's scary sometimes how well she can read me. Tina doesn't have a trace of magical talent, but there are times I wonder which one of us is the better witch. "Looks like dad has a mystery for me."

"We could use a government retainer."

"That would be so nice." I have one with Metro PD but lucrative cases have been sparse lately and I could use a few days steady work. I pull a jacket out of the closet. "I'll let you know what I get."

xxx

I should introduce myself. I'm Su Lin Palmer, Licensed PPI, that's a Private Paranormal Investigator and I run 'Otherworld Investigations' here in Washington D.C. It's 'Susan Linda' on the license but I never go by that. I have a little of dad's Nordic complexion but the Asian blood is strong, so for all my adult life it's been 'Su Lin'.

You can call me a 'Paranormal Investigator' if you don't confuse the old definition for the modern one. You see, I don't investigate the paranormal; I use the paranormal _for_ my investigations.

Not to put too sharp an edge on it, I'm a Witch, and I'll say without a trace of modesty that I'm quite good at it. Like all those in my Coven, I follow the Celtic tradition; Dana and Dagda are our chief Deities. I know, looking at me, you'd expect me to be Feng Shui or something like that; sorry to disappoint you. Then again, I'm not that much of a traditionalist and I enjoy not matching people's expectations.

But my life's passion has always been mystery solving. I suppose you can't grow up begging for Case Histories to substitute for boring bedtime stories without it having a massive effect upon your life. My family's best friends are the foremost agents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and I'm the daughter of the Chief Medical Examiner and the Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge, so it was inevitable that I'd get into Investigating too.

I didn't join NCIS. When your parents are in the upper echelons, then no matter how good you are, you're still your parents' daughter. I struck out on my own, in a field where I could put my talents to their best use.

x

NCIS Headquarters in the Navy Yard on the Anacostia has grown over the years to encompass two buildings, the result of the rest of the Navy and Marines' expansion in the past decade. Conflicts sparked in the beginning of the century led to all branches of the Military growing in size and scope, so NCIS, the Army CID and the others increased proportionately. The job remains the same, the techniques and scope expanded tremendously - and not always for the better.

Anyway, I make it down to Autopsy after a few pauses to exchange greetings with old friends I encounter along the way. But when the main door slides aside the tension in the air makes it feel like walking into a brick wall.

I'm surprised at how many people await me in the huge white room, the expanse of which is broken by three silver metal tables. I was expecting two, at most three, not six.

Dad's dressed in blue scrubs, an image I've known forever. I sometimes tease him that I'm going to intercept his next order and substitute a shipment of yellow or pink. He says it'll be a refreshing change. Yellow might suit his lightening blond hair, the lightening growing each year with more white strands mingled in with the blond. Dad'll never go grey, he'll ultimately go a glorious white but I'm in no hurry.

He's been Chief Medical Examiner following Ducky Mallard's retirement, when he returned to Scotland ten years ago along with his wife Jordan. I was five before I learned that Ducky _had_ an actual first name. What does a kid know? I was disappointed. I never used it. Besides, I always thought he took particular pleasure in being called 'Uncle Ducky'.

Anyway, when he retired there were only two left on the team. Dad was bumped up to 'Chief', a title Ducky had declined, because Samantha Marsters is an M.E. too. She'd be mad if I told you how long that's been, but last year they took her out to dinner to celebrate her nineteenth year, so you do the math.

Sammy. If anyone can be described as a 'spirit of ecstasy' it is Sammy Marsters. I've never met anyone else who is _perpetually _happy. She might project 'serious', even 'grim' when it's warranted, but you always sense there's that core of happiness just dying to peek out. She's a five foot two bundle of energy packaged in an ecstatic shell. She'll never die; someday I expect to get a call that she'd spontaneously combusted.

x

"Hi, Su!" she manages to greet me first, a half syllable faster than anyone else, and since she's closest she pulls me into an enthusiastic hug.

"Hi, Sammy!" I return as brightly - with her you can't be anything else - but I can look over her head to see that mom and dad, though happy to see me, are distracted about something. You wouldn't see it, you'd see parents waiting to greet their wandering daughter, but I can see it.

As always, it's in the eyes.

"Sammy?" Dad's voice is barely patient.

She looks up and meets my eyes with an infectious twinkle that says 'I know what I'm doing and I'm doing it anyway'. "Hmmmm?"

Dad cocks his thumb to one side, unable to completely disguise a smile. After years together, she has no secrets from him. "Gid outta da way!"

I know from their manner that they are stalling a grim revelation as long as possible. Why else would not only mom be here, but her entire team as well?

x

If dad doesn't show the ravages of years, neither does mom. In fact, I take more to mom than dad, the eyes (though mine are green), the black hair (though dad's curls give me curves), and when I look in the mirror I see some of dad's Nordic complexion but the Asian blood is strong.

Dad, as I said, is Chief Medical Examiner for the Headquarters District, Mom's the Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge and leader of the Major Case Response Team ranged out behind her but responsible for twelve teams, just as her predecessor LeeJay Gibbs had been.

Her presence, of course, is no surprise. When greetings have wound down – I saw them for Sunday dinner so it's not a big reunion – attention has to return to why I'm here. I'm here not for a reunion but because I'm needed.

x

The MCR Team, Bill Parsons, Ken Smalley and Cathy Matheson, take their places a few feet away, unobtrusive observers of whatever is about to happen. Without a word that might shape my perceptions, dad goes to the bank of cooling units inset into the left wall and opens a silver door second from the top. I take a position opposite him so the drawer will slide out between us. I've already caught a glimpse of blonde hair. "I'd tell you to brace yourself if it made a difference."

I've seen more corpses than I ever want to number, most often the result of walking into this room unannounced and not quite invited, but I steel myself anyway. Mom and Sammy take positions a few feet to our side, where the slab will stop when fully extended. He pulls out the tray, cold metal sliding on cold metal to display the naked body.

I'd wasted time preparing; an hour's preparation wouldn't have helped. When I see her face, or rather what's left of it, I clamp my hand over my mouth to contain a gasp of shock and outrage. Her hands and knees are crushed. Blood had been cleaned from the wounds but fill the flesh under her skin, it's turned hands and knees deep purple. Even without x-rays I can recognize shattered bones.

"April!" I force the word through lips that don't want to move, and at the thought of lips my stomach churns. Someone has taken a blade and cut off her lips. They left her cheeks, cupid's bow and the flesh below her lips, just taking the capillary-rich soft tissue, leaving her looking like she's smiling.

It's a particularly nauseating smile.

x

It takes a few moments to force my hand down, and when I try to speak my voice is rough with the effort to swallow bile. "April Stein; we call her 'M.J.'."

She looks nineteen. I don't know her exact age. Long blonde hair, slim but 'generously endowed', tanned without any visible lines; she has – had – that ability to silence conversation just by walking across a room.

"How long have you known her?" mom asks. I was obviously sent for to make a positive identification, so I stuff my emotions into a strong box deep in my soul and make one.

"Almost a year," I look at mom, "and yes, you were right in whatever you were thinking. She's Rising Star."

x

'Rising Star' is our Coven, a gathering of over 30 pagan, neo-pagan and other various religious practitioners who share one thing in common. April, like mom and I, is a witch. I'm not surprised, though, that mom couldn't make a positive ID herself. My schedule allows far more opportunity to attend our bi-weekly gatherings than does a Federal Agent's. She makes what Sabbats or Esbats, our regular ritual gatherings, that she can, but I guess neither of them were at the same ones. Then again, a positive ID is hard because I don't want to look at April's face any more than anyone else does.

"She's a Reservist Lance Corporal, assigned to Quantico," mom says.

"I didn't know." There are so many witches, not only of Rising Star but other Covens, that I don't know well, at least not in their mundane lives. In some ways I have as little time for getting to know my fellow Wiccans as mom does, though I do try. I instantly resolve that that lack is going to change. "How did she die?"

Looking at what's left of her hands and knees, and her face, I've too good an idea.

"Her body was found by campers at Shenandoah Park who heard her screaming and tracked the sound. It stopped before they could get close enough to pinpoint and they had to search the area. They describe her last shriek as absolutely terrifying because it was so violent and cut off so suddenly. By the time they made it to the top of a knoll whoever did this was long gone. Her wrists, ankles and neck were clamped in metal arches similar to thick croquet wickets driven into the rock. Park Police had to pry her loose."

x

Dad picks up the story as I stare at April's body, the bruises that cover her hands and knees so horrendously familiar I want to be sick. The distortion that fills them is so widespread it can only be perimortem. "Blunt force trauma; the impact points are about three inches square. At this moment I'm thinking a sledgehammer such as what might have been used for the clamps." He's repressing, his voice is flat. He's going for details to keep feelings at bay. I don't blame him; right now I don't want to feel either.

"It shattered all the carpals, metacarpals and phalanges in each of her hands as well as the joints between each tibia and femur and crushed each patella. Atelectasis, initially indicated by petechial hemorrhaging in her eyes, shows she was smothered several times, but not fatally."

I want to be wrong about the bruising, but I'm not. "She was alive?" Please say 'no', dad; please.

"Through all of it, even when her lips were cut off."

I know from the bruising that fills her hands and knees that she lived for at least four minutes after they had been smashed, but I'd have preferred she'd been dead rather than to live through this final horror. I imagine blood gushing to cover her face, neck – before she was washed she must have been even more horrifying to behold. To think this was all done while she was alive….

I can't miss, however, that the rest of her is still intact. They haven't begun the autopsy. There's no mark on her other than her face, knees and hands. The torture, though agonizing, is not enough to be fatal. _Please_ don't tell me she bled out through…

"What was the Cause?" Anyone else might ask 'how did she die?' We deal in 'causes' and 'manners' of death. Horrible as it is, I can't force myself to look away. Goddess help me, I can't.

"When she was brought in there were apparently no fatal wounds, but lividity showed a massive concentration of blood in the middle of her back. I ordered an MRI."

A magnetic resonance image scan will show an almost perfect picture of the inside of her body, calibrated to whatever depth is needed. "And?"

"Her heart was attacked."

This pulls my eyes off M.J. to him. He hadn't said she had a heart attack. "Something tore the left side of her heart from the right. Without going through the thoracic cavity, something ripped her heart in half."


	2. Negotiating with the Boss

Chapter Two

Negotiating with the Boss

I'm sweating, nausea warring with revulsion. Then mom's at my side, her arm about my shoulders as she guides me two steps back until I can feel the breeze of the AC above my head. The fugue passes quickly, even before dad pushes the drawer back and seals the unit.

"Are you okay, princess?"

"I'm fine," I tell him, focusing on professionalism. The problem with a brave front, though, is that it doesn't fool the ones who know you best.

"You recognize it," mom says. Neither of us has to elaborate.

"Rising Star."

"Come on."

"Where?"

"This is something Director DiNozzo needs to hear."

xx

When Cynthia Sumner, who's been here since the mortar dried on this building, admits us into Tony DiNozzo's office I have to admit to being surprised. I don't get to see him often either. Our paths rarely cross and I actually saw him most recently during a Mobius transition nearly thirty years into the past. Using the Scrying mirror in my office, I'd followed John Carson through time to stop him from changing the past by killing LeeJay Gibbs, Tony, Tim McGee and Ziva David. The 'mission' had nearly become a temporal disaster, more my fault than his. It wasn't my proudest moment.

Then Tony had been a brash young man, a Lothario of legendary reputation who'd actually tried to _pick me up_ in an elevator when he realized I wasn't mom. The complexion and long black hair from the back had briefly fooled him even though I have more curves to my hair – credit dad. But when he'd seen my face he'd considered me fair game. I have to give him credit, though. He had had about fifteen seconds as the car descended to the garage in which to make a pass and it'd been a good one. I'll bet he forgets all about it, though. I was just one woman out of a myriad, and I'd never embarrass him by reminding him.

Now he's little different from the man he had been. Still tall, dark and devastatingly handsome, he's still a true danger to women. He's long and happily married, with a daughter almost my age, but to look at him, well…. His face is little changed, dabs of grey at his temples and silver framed pince-nez glasses only highlight his attractiveness. He actually looks better to me now than he had in the past, but that's because this is the image of him that I know.

I'd grown up around these people, they were 'aunt' this and 'uncle' that. Even today I still greet them with that title of warm affection. I think they rather like it.

After uncle LeeJay had retired, NCIS being unforgiving in its rules about age, uncle Tony had taken over leadership of the team that included mom, now _Professor_ Tim and _Mossad Deputy Director_ Ziva. It was a few years later, when aunt Jenny retired to Florida, that she named uncle Tony her successor.

He'd grown into the job, combining street savvy with an unwillingness to think inside the box. There are times, in fact, that I suspect he'd deny the very existence of a box.

He greets us warmly enough, but a Director is a busy man and we're quickly deep into business.

x

"Reservist Lance Corporal April Stein, assigned to Quantico first and third weekends and July, was found yesterday clamped to rocky ground at the top of a knoll in Shenandoah," mom brings him up to speed. "Someone apparently used a sledgehammer on her hands and knees, cut off her lips and tore her heart in two – _without_ going through her chest."

"What did Harris find?"

"He turned up a few leads, nothing definite yet. His lab is analyzing all the physical effects from the scene. He told me the same thing Abby Dwyer used to tell Gibbs, 'you can't rush science'."

"Maybe not, but I think I can light a fire under him. In the meantime," he turns to me, "much as I like you, Su, why am I looking at you?"

x

I refrain from telling him 'because I'm cute'. Tony does have a sense of humor – you can't run a Government Agency without one – but it seems rather distant today and there is absolutely nothing funny about this. "I was called in to make a positive ID –"

"Had it."

"And to consult on the manner of death."

"And what _was_ the 'manner of death'?"

"Witchcraft. Specifically Darkcraft."

I'm not sure if his look of disgust is over the subject in general or the thought of trying to apprehend a murderer who uses it. Uncle Tony has never been comfortable with the very existence of witchcraft – or anything that can't be seen – but he can't deny its validity. "I thought you people had rules. No hurting."

"Someone broke them. M.J. was killed by –"

"M.J.?"

What can I do but shrug? "April had an unusual sense of humor, inherited I suspect. Her middle name was 'May'. She was brought up Catholic and when it was time to choose a Confirmation name she went against tradition and chose 'June'."

"April May June." I was right; his sense of humor isn't in play today. In fact, I can virtually see it fading by the second. "All right, you say she died from darkcraft. Tell me how."

I exchange a quick glance with mom. This information is private, but the murderer broke privacy long before I could. I have no choice. He – or she – has made certain that privacy was over.

x

"All Covens have a ceremony of Initiation. Some, like our Coven, Rising Star, have two; one for neophytes, one for witches a year and a day later, a 'Wiccaning' we call it. The ceremonies performed have several things in common, yet each is unique. I've seen and participated in Wiccanings all over this area, as well as Initiations. They are as distinctive as fingerprints; everyone has them and, similar though they are, no two are identical. Whoever did this belongs to our own Coven; Rising Star."

"Or is trying to frame us or one of our members, while diverting suspicion," mom says.

"We'll come back to that, Probette," he assures her. "Tell me more."

x

I take a deep, centering breath and start revealing things I swore on my Word of Honor to keep private. Goddess forgive me, but I didn't bring us to this.

"Our Ceremony of Initiation is symbolic, designed to teach moral lessons. In it, you are taught to harm no one with our gifts, to implore the aid of the God and Goddess for the benefit of others and to speak the truth in all things. As a lesson not to raise your hand to harm another, the hands are struck. As a lesson not to pray for harm your knees are struck, and as a lesson not to lie, mislead or corrupt, you lips are struck. It's never hard, only enough to sting, enough to impress the moral lessons without causing harm."

"And the ripping the heart in half?"

"I – er – haven't figured that one out yet. There is a lesson that if you are coming into the ceremony with any evil intent it is better to impale yourself upon a blade, but I don't know how that fits."

"Maybe it's not Rising Star."

"I know all the active Covens in the surrounding states. If it's not ours then it's not local and you're looking for an unknown body in an unknown state."

"NCIS at its finest, but for now we'll focus on the ones in the area." He spreads his hands, addressing mom. "You have a body, a pool of suspects to interview and either indict or clear, a motive to uncover and a murderer to identify and arrest. Go to it."

"It's not that simple."

He takes off his glasses, lets them drop to the desk, puts his head to his hand and shakes it. "Why did I know she was going to say that?" We wait until he retrieves his glasses, but he fixes mom with an impatient glare over them. "Why _not_, Probette?"

"You know the law doesn't recognize Supernormal methods of crimes. Neither JAG nor a D.A. will go to court with it."

"They don't recognize it and, no offense, I can't stand it. You know how I feel about Halloween; I like magic a lot less. I need the provable, the measurable, something Harris can point to on a slide or one of his infernal machines and tell me 'this is what the perp used and this is how he did it'."

"I can't do that," mom admits, not wanting to add to his hardship; "neither can Jim and Sammy. We could bring him or her in and the best we can get in court is felony assault, possibly with kidnapping, but we can't get him or her on murder."

"All those years at Harvard Law for you to tell me what we _can't_ do."

I sympathize with his frustration.

"But Su Lin can get us what we need."

Tony looks like he's seeing light at the end of a long, black tunnel. "How?"

"I understand these people," I tell him. "I know them, and I understand their methods. I can get a confession."

x

"All right," he says, slapping the desk blotter, pretending to be happy and fooling no one, "confessions are good. I like confessions." But then his mask sloughs off. "How?" he turns to mom, "and why can't you get a confession? Why are we going out of house with this?"

"Because Su Lin has the personal contacts I lack and in this case can't build. I don't see these people as often as I should and I'm _known_ as a Federal Agent. My team wouldn't even get as much as I would and I can't get as much as she would. Su Lin's not widely known in the Covens _for_ her profession but as a witch. She could slip in under the radar."

"So use her to collect evidence and funnel it out." He looks to me. "As I recall, that's the limit of your license."

"That's right. If I arrest anyone it has only the force of a Citizen's Arrest. I can apprehend or detain. A LEO - in this case a Federal Agent - has to make the real collar."

"So you go in, get the evidence, funnel it out and back off graciously."

"Yes."

"Okay, I can live with that."

"Then it's a done deal. All that's left is my fee."

x

I swear the smile just fell right off his face. "Excuse me, did you just use the 'F' word?"

Mom tries to give me a high sign, I ignore it. Business is business. "I'm a professional, Investigation is my job."

He looks from one of us to the other. I'm not backing down. Mom looks like she supports me but I can see she really wants to smack me. "All right, I'll bite. What is your fee?"

"Fifteen hundred a day plus expenses, first three days up front."

He looks at me over his glasses. "_Boop_!" he mimes putting a phone to his ear, "sorry, wrong number; try again." He puts the 'phone' down with a rap of knuckles on the desk.

For a few moments it's a staring contest, but I blink first. I have to. If I don't, mom and the others go up against a supernormal murderer who can tear a heart in half. "All right, what's NCIS offering?"

"Offering?" he says it as though I'd suggested something biologically unnatural.

"Offering."

"Nothing," then he smiles that charming smile, "other than our thanks."

I can't even blame him. He likes to work outside the box but as Director he also has to do right by his Agency. "Uncle Tony –" I try, but the attempt to reinforce a connection falls flat.

"Su Lin, your mother's whole _team_ doesn't gross forty five hundred in three days. We're NCIS, not NSA, FBI or CI-freeping-A. I don't have that kind of discretionary money."

"And you know me too well."

"True, you'd work pro-bono to clear this up. No, I'm not saying that – quite. Pull this off and we'll come to an equitable deal."

My smile is pure chagrin. "Do you know how much I love doing business with friends and family?"

"About as much as I love Halloween and black magic."


	3. A Powerful Adversary

Chapter Three

A Powerful Adversary

The sun is starting to dip to the horizon as I ride with mom and Bill Parsons through Shenandoah. Ken Smally and Cathy Matheson follow in the blue and white MCR van. The five of us could have used either, each has plenty of seating, but mom wants the freedom of transport without hindering anyone, hence two vehicles.

The van's Azeon could drive the van to the scene on its own with Cathy's programming, but I'm just a passenger and not about to volunteer suggestions in front of the team. That's also why I don't point out that I could drive my own car and tap into the conference through a handheld radio. I'm a civilian in an NCIS operation; the Team Leader decides who goes where.

Our pause at the Ranger Station is brief, just long enough to let them know we're coming through. Now it's a long, meandering trip through beautiful country. Autumn foliage turns the park into a tremendous vista of sharp complimentary colors; red, orange, yellow, still plenty of green, but my mind isn't on the beauty.

Shenandoah Park is incredible, one hundred ninety eight _thousand_ acres; over three hundred square miles. You simply can't appreciate what that means until you drive through it. You could hike its lush wilderness for days and not see another human. The biggest job Rangers have is tracking the unwary camper who wanders too far off the paths and must be rescued. Searches can last for hours or days; you simply can't get a sense of the scale of this place without being here.

It's the perfect place to bring someone if you want total privacy. Yesterday it was the perfect place to bring a woman to murder her.

xx

The GPS indicator on the dash tells me we're about five minutes from our destination. When we get there I figure we'll have about an hour's usable light.

"How many people have been at the site?"

"The three campers arrived first," mom tells me. "Then nine park Rangers but only three approached the body while the others formed a perimeter. Then five Park Police, then us, twenty one in all but only fifteen got close and no more than six actually touched where she died."

This is useful information, though I would have preferred the number to be lower. When I get there the first thing I'm going to do is search back in time for impressions buried under impressions, to the point when M.J. was actually murdered. I want to see if I can get a sense of who was with her at the time. If I can, and I can recognize the impressions, it's a fait accompli. If not, I'll file away the awareness in my head until I actually meet the killer, at which time I'll recognize him. Again a fait accompli, the case should be over by dinner.

I don't trust fait accompli, mostly because I never get them and I'm never home by dinner.

x

When we pull up to the base of a twelve foot grassy knoll, I memorize the longitude and latitude from the GPS. I have a feeling I'm going to need them and I always trust my gut. Getting out of the car, I see from the tire tracks the depressing number of vehicles that have overrun the area. As I implied, I prefer virgin scenes, it makes gathering psychic impressions that much easier.

That's what makes me so annoyed; this place is no more virginal than I am.

x

It does me no good to gripe, even if I were the type to allow myself the luxury. Mom already knows the problem and the other three, good as they are at their jobs, just wouldn't understand. It's the difference between a physical investigator and a psychical one, and I just have to live with the distinction.

To a psychical investigator there are two kinds of crime scenes and they are wholly different. The first, the rarest, is a scene that has not been approached or touched, those are the good ones. The other, the not good ones, are the ones in which people, no matter how careful they are of the physical evidence, have affected the psychical scene simply by being there and responding to it.

We stand at the southwestern side of the rise, the sun behind us. I duck under the outer ring of Crime Scene tape that surrounds the knoll while mom and the others take the report of the unlucky Probationary Agent who'd been left behind to guard the scene. Starting up the twelve feet, I hold the psychic shields I normally keep up twenty-four-seven as far down as I can. I have to hold myself open for everything I can sense, no matter what it might be. It's tricky, and often a big risk; the more you lower your guard or the more permeable you make it, the more things can slip in. Sometimes that's a very _bad_ thing.

I concentrate on passive awareness, not trying to seek anything out but just to let the sensations come to me until I can get enough of a sense of the scene. I keep my eyes down near my feet, more attentive to not tripping over a stone or root than to what is before me. That's another reason why I didn't want – and didn't get – too much information. Awareness must come on one thing at a time, first things first.

x

When I'm on the top, just outside the inner ring of tape, I see the holes that mark where the clamps had been driven into the ground like thick croquet wickets. Blood has stained the stone and I stop dead. Blood is a powerful element and if blood magic has been evoked I don't want to rush.

There's one pair of holes inches below the blood, two more sets a foot and a half lower and several feet apart, another pair set apart several feet below those. I can mentally sketch a pentagram from her spread limbs.

I bend to look at one of the holes where the clamp had been driven into the rock. It's deep. The Police must have had a time prying it loose. M.J. never had a prayer.

I close my eyes, relax further and try to do away with tension and the awareness of the moment. I know mom is backing the rest of the team a few yards further back. It helps.

I can sense the emotions of the investigators who'd stood here, an echo of their lives impressed upon the scene. The further back I go the more care the clarity takes. I'm working my way back over lives and powerful emotions impressed upon the scene over a full day. I have to go further back, past others surprised and distressed, past shock and fear and revulsion to –

The blast of fear hits me hard enough to mentally rock me back on my heels. This is definitely M.J.. Her terror and pain – her death – have suffused this spot like an overdeveloped photograph. I don't feel her pain, it's an awareness of what happened yet I'm neither hurt nor terrified. Her death has bathed everything under a psychic flood. It's like feeling an explosion that happened long ago but that still resonates in the air, in the ground, in the ether itself, still immediate and real.

Now that I have a sense of her – poor M.J., how she'd suffered – I work to filter her out, to filter the rescuers and investigators, to concentrate on what's left.

x

This is wrong. I've made a mistake.

I shut my eyes, working through everything again, shutting out birdcalls, the sun at my back, the team withdrawn yards away. I shut out the Park Police, the Rangers, the campers. I go more slowly this time, more carefully. It occurs to me to try filtering out less people, if someone I'd excluded is actually my quarry, but after a time that fails as well.

When I open my eyes the knoll is dimmed, the shadows significantly longer, but I hold my concentration on the scene. I very slowly circle the area, inward faced and moving deosil, following the path of the sun. There's nothing particular in the choice, just force of habit. I rarely go widdershins, opposite the sun, the left hand path. I move slowly inside the taped circle, praying to the Goddess for psychic sight. It takes another ten minutes to circle the area once, and when I reach where M.J.'s head had been, where blood stains the stone on either side of her head, I decide I've run out of choices.

Crouching down on the balls of my feet, not about to kneel on a crime scene, I take a deep, steadying breath and tentatively reach out. This is something I do _not_ want to do. If blood magic has been evoked and I connect with it with all my shields down I'm going to be one very sorry woman.

With just the tip of my finger I touch the dried blood, not where a sample had been removed but from the smallest of spots.

M.J. covers my mind like a tsunami, but only her, so though I'm drowned in her impression I'm not left writhing on the ground shrieking in agony as a spell tries to tear my soul to shreds. Instead, I work carefully to filter her out. I spend an unpleasant two minutes there, stand up, turn _and nearly jump out of my skin_.

Mom is standing less than two feet away. I'd forgotten how well she can shield herself, almost as well as our adversary can.

x

"_Nothing_!" I allow the full force of my frustration a target - I don't _like_ being startled. "Not a God d–" in time I spot the immediate tightening of her eyes, "blessed thing."

"I know. I was here last night for over two hours. I thought maybe you'd break through where I couldn't." Why am I not surprised she'd used me for a blind test? Because I'd specifically asked not to be told too much information, that's why.

"It's as though no one was here. And I did test the campers, Rangers, Police – I even tested _them_." I look past her shoulder at the team and the agent who'd guarded the knoll."

"I know. I did too. And he _was_ here." I don't really want to deal with this. "His shielding is perfect. We're dealing with a _very_ powerful Adept." She nods. "Tell me." I'm ready for the whole story.

"We found her clothes folded neatly on that rock," she points to a large stone a few feet to the right of the line of her body, near where her feet had been. "Everything was in order, from sneakers with socks tucked inside through tee shirt and shorts, bra and panties, stacked just as she'd removed them, ready to put back on. I backtracked her that way," a glance to my right, "through the woods for three quarters of a mile before I came to a road. We found tire impressions from three makes, we have casts and I can only hope one of them is our target. We've an even chance it'll be Stein's."

"Just our luck."

"But through every step they took I only sensed her. I could – and did – track her with my eyes closed and she was alone."

"Could she have been?" At this point I'd be happier with a mundane explanation, but naturally mom shakes her head. Why can't it ever be easy?"

"Two sets of prints, both sneakers. The grass obscured them on approach and it's rocky up here, but in the soft soil near the edge of the road we got some excellent impressions. The ones that aren't hers contain series of horizontal treads more appropriate to running than climbing."

"We're talking about more than an hour, maybe two. Who can hold a firm shield that long?"

"I can't."

"I doubt I can either." I'm powerful, more so than mom and she's not vain about admitting it. But if I tried the kind of effort this takes for an hour or more you'd have to carry me to my bed.

x

"I could sense a Circle of Protection had been raised," she tells me.

"That covers anything outside knowing or feeling what's within," I'm almost embarrassed to 'remind' her – Wicca 101, "but it doesn't mean he could drop his shields. Even a personal Circle won't help; it's passive and this takes active control. Two plus hours of it."

She nods and turns to start down the hill. "Mom?" When she turns, I have to say it, the thing that's been scaring the hell out of me for the past ten minutes. "She was naked, and what was done to her – smothering, clamping her down, smashing her hands and knees, cutting off her lips – these are powerful things. There would've been lust, anger, rage, hatred, sadism, whatever. Powerful emotions, if he has any, have a way of bleeding through any possible shield."

"I know," she admits. "He's scaring me too."


	4. Sledgehammer

Chapter Four

Sledgehammer

There's a definite demarcation in this case. NCIS will pursue the physical investigation; tire tracks, footprints, M.J.'s body, what have you. I'll take the psychical side, but subtly. They'll be open in their investigation; interviewing witness, collecting and analyzing evidence. I'll be more discreet, not openly on the case.

Of course we'll interview many of the same people, but in the case of one person, discretion and subtlety are sheer wastes of time. That's why, at nine thirty at night, I'm in an elevator going up to the sixth floor of an apartment building in Adams Morgan. When the door opens I turn left to the end of the hall, last door on the right, apartment G. I ring the bell, her voice comes from inside. "It's open, Su Lin."

I think I hate it when she does this.

x

I let myself in, the grey haired black woman seated at the kitchen table smiles up at me. She has never looked her age, though she's been our High Priestess since long before I was born. "Come in, child, sit down."

She's not alone, there's a Caucasian man seated at the table with her. When he turns I'm embarrassed not to have recognized him even from behind. At least there's no need to hide anything; I acknowledge both with my right hand to my heart. "Peace to all who reside here."

"Blessed be," they return.

"You felt me coming." It's hardly a wonder.

"As soon as you crossed the front door."

I'd felt the wards before I even entered the lobby, which is why her welcome had come as no surprise. Annoyance, but not surprise. Identifying a visitor at a couple hundred feet is a trick I haven't mastered – yet.

Kendra Little, in her 'mundane' life a Criminal Defense lawyer, is to the Wiccan community the High Priestess of Rising Star Coven. She's held the 'post' for over thirty five years and is one of the most powerful Adepts I know. The man seated to my left, Seamus Cein, High Priest for nine years, is no weakling either.

I'd rather have spoken to her alone, but that would have necessitated calling ahead, not part of my plan. Of course, that had to turn out not to matter.

"Now tell me," she urges as I seat myself, "what disturbs you so?"

Kendra is also the most perceptive woman I know, though that comes as much from reading faces and body language as being psychically sensitive, _all_excellent talents inside a courtroom. We encounter each other there occasionally as well as at the Wiccan temple. I'm usually giving testimony; she's usually defending the one I'm testifying against. This, however, never enters into our personal or mystical relationship.

"Worthies, April Stein has been murdered."

x

Mom's an advocate of the 'sledgehammer approach', something uncle Tony taught her, and I find it useful as well. Hit people with shocking news right between the eyes and watch their reactions. I get surprise up to shock, distress, a flash of disbelief quickly abandoned, everything but apprehension or guilt.

I don't just watch, I drop my shields and probe more deeply than is polite. They know it and they let me do it. When I'm done we're all sure of the same thing: none of us feel guilty, none of us killed April Stein.

I'm glad – I don't want to find any guilt here of all places. Kendra's dark face shows no guile, she is one of the few truly open people I know. When you're confidant in your own power and you know you have the active support of the Goddess, there's no need for masks.

Seamus Cein is just as unguarded, his green eyes filled with shock as he brushes a lock of red hair from his eyes where it had fallen forward in his initial start. His face has paled slightly, throwing sparse freckles into sharp relief.

"How did it happen?" he asks, his brogue sharp.

x

There's absolutely no way I can answer his question other than truthfully. There's just no point in being evasive, not that I really want to. One, they'd spot a lie almost as well as uncle LeeJay could, and two, I'm here to get the backing of the Coven's leadership in what is going to be a tense investigation. If whoever killed M.J. is not part of Rising Star, he - or she, since it's too soon to conclude - is most definitely a witch and knows our private Initiation Ceremony. No one but a witch is supposed to know that and no one who isn't a powerful Adept could hide from mom and I while killing M.J.

I tell them everything; Skyclad, the Circle, the lack of an impression – testament of a _powerful_ witch – the sledgehammer on hands, the smashing of knees, the cutting off of her lips while she was still alive, everything except her heart because Kendra raises her hand to stop me.

I give them a minute to digest it. It's a load. Wicca is an ancient system of faith, rooted in the elements and focused on good, on helping, on healing and support, love and faith. The High Priestess and High Priest are more than leaders, they are teacher, Scout master, guide and confidant rolled into one – or two, actually. While their places in Ritual are clearly defined, they are Godmother and Godfather of the community of the faithful.

It's not an easy thing to hear that a Goddesschild has been murdered, and that it was done so violently, so nauseatingly, in a way that perversely implicates our own Coven.

x

"I'm sorry, but I have to ask this. Where were you yesterday afternoon?"

"I was in the office," Kendra says, "going over some briefs." She has no problem with my need for their alibis.

"I was on a wiring job at a construction site."

I give Seamus more interest, and I have to admit there's always been just the tiniest smidgen of personal interest. I've always found him attractive in a rugged sort of way. About five years older than me, it's rare for someone so young to be a High Priest for so long. But Ritual demands it and women in our Coven – most of them in their twenties and thirties – outnumber men by better than fifteen to one.

Hey, if I were a guy, I'd take the job.

Anyway, and only because he's a man - and around M.J.'s and my ages, I look to him for insight. He did pass my scan, I have no doubt about that, but he is a man and she had been skyclad.

"Okay. Do you know if she was seeing anyone?" I doubt she would willingly undress except for two reasons: a Skyclad ritual with someone she trusted or for a more personal reason with someone she _really_ trusted.

They both shake their heads.

I can feel they are both suppressing very powerful emotions. Emotional control is essential for any witch, more so as you advance in power, and what I've just given them is enough to test anyone's control.

"Do you suspect anyone?" she asks me.

"With the exception of the three of us, Kendra, I suspect everyone." In my profession I have to, and as a lawyer Kendra knows this very well.

These two are the ones who know me best as a Private Investigator, not many in the Coven do. I'm guilty of the same thing others are. In the Coven it doesn't matter if you're a stockbroker or a clerk, we're Witches first and foremost. I know most of us from gatherings and Sabbats and Esbats but can I tell you what everyone does for a living? No. As I decided earlier, that's a flaw of mine I intend to correct.

x

I admit I'm sometimes particularly careful, trying not to let my professional life color my personal one. It's more challenging than it has to be.

But right now, from a converse position, it's actually an advantage.

"I'm going to have to speak with each of us, but I don't really want to go in flashing my badge."

"I understand," Kendra assures me. "By tomorrow the Coveners will know April is dead, but no one will know why. By tradition I'll call everyone together and give them the news, whereafter we'll pray to the Goddesses and Gods for her soul's passage to the Summerland. I expect there'll be questions and speculation; your joining in conversations will be natural."

"I want to be in a position to observe everyone when you make the announcement."

She nods. "Moonrise tomorrow." She stands up, a signal for all of us to. "In the meantime, let's set the Altar, cast a Circle and offer our prayers for our sister."

xxx

The waning moon is an hour shy of zenith when Seamus and I leave the building. "Do you need a ride?" I know his preference for busses or the Metroline on short distances; Seamus is a strong advocate of conservation. I honestly don't even know if he drives. As an Investigator I've been horribly lax with my friends. On a case I dig for everything, it's becoming clear just how lax I've been 'off duty'.

"Thank you. I'm over on Vermont Northwest."

"I know, it's on my way."

"Of course you do," he confesses, obviously trying not to feel foolish and looking all the more endearing for it.

Okay – I confess – I've always had a warm spot in my heart, and other places I'll never admit to aloud, for him. He's a nice guy, and a fellow Wiccan is someone I can really let my hair down with. You'd be amazed how many clients – and friends – do _not_ fall into that category.

There's an old song by the Doors with the refrain 'when you're strange' and emphasizing the way people react to you, mostly badly. At a party two years ago Laurel Stevens wrote a hilarious parody of it that went 'When you're (a) witch'.

But there are still some lonely days when it's not funny.

x

In fact, it makes me feel pretty damn lonely.

I have friends, not many of whom are witches. I have a lot of sisters and brothers in the craft, most of whom I don't discuss my profession with. I have clients who come seeking the aid of a Witch Private Investigator but they are hardly friends. They are strangers when we meet and strangers when we part. I have friends at NCIS because I've been there on and off all through my life but those I knew best are generally a generation removed; they're mom and dad's friends and confidants, not mine, though I've always called them 'Aunt' this and 'Uncle' that.

With the exception of Tina, who is as much a friend as an employee, there are damned few who feature in more than one aspect of my life.

As I said, sometimes that hilarious parody isn't very damn funny.

x

When we're in my car and on the road the first thing he says to me is "Su Lin, you know you can count on Kendra and me for help." It's just what a High Priest would be expected to say, but at this moment I don't want a High Priest. I want someone who knows M.J. well enough to give me some perspective.

"Why would someone kill April?" The question has been playing over and over in my head like a mantra for hours. "It's like she was preparing for a Skyclad ceremony. She took off her clothes and folded everything neatly in a single stack from sneakers to panties, and a Circle was cast while she – and he – would have been Skyclad. But why would she be Skyclad? We don't do that many such ceremonies – at least _I_ never have. But if it _wasn't_ a ritual… If I believed in luck it'd be just you and Mike I'd be watching most closely tomorrow when Kendra makes her announcement."

Seamus is shaking his head. "Won't do at all, April liked girls as much as boys."

x

It's a good thing we're not going fast – the tires screech when I stamp on the brake and we halt so suddenly Seamus has to throw his hands to the glove compartment. "_Dagda_, Su Lin, that's the last time I tell you anything!"

"I'm sorry!" I feel like an idiot and not just because my plan had been blown away. I don't blame him for calling on the Chief God for help. In Seamus' eyes I probably _am_ an idiot. "It's just, well –" Okay, there is no graceful way out of this. Without his harness, I'd probably have broken his nose.

"Well, it's an acceptable lifestyle and all that," he says.

Truthfully I know only one openly bi-sexual woman, and if Sammy Marsters is happy, who am I to bitch?

Actually, he's quite right, bisexuality isn't the issue. My issue is that the list of suspects has jumped from male witches to every witch in the city. I know how many people that is, and its more than the general public suspects.

I start the car again and a glance at Seamus shows me he's probably trying to trust me not to get him killed before he's safely home. Can't say I blame him, I feel like an idiot.

I say nothing more; just reflect on how my list of potential suspects, so briefly down to a manageable two, is now back to well over thirty. If I were to limit it to Rising Star, that is.

And the worst of it is that it was my own sexual preferences that'd done it. I'd latched onto M.J. being Skyclad – read nude – and figured a man was involved, even though, strictly speaking, Skyclad ritual has absolutely nothing to do with sex.

If this is what going to come from having a handsome … virile … man seated two feet from me then I'm the one who needs a bloody nose.

xx

Within a few blocks, the tension has faded when he asks, "Did she do anything wrong?"

"What?" His question had come out of the blue. Or had it?

"I was thinking about what you said earlier; 'why would someone kill April'? Whoever did it didn't shoot her, didn't stab her, didn't do a thousand things. He smashed her hands and knees, cut off her lips and tore her heart in half. Someone had to hate her pretty badly or want to implicate Rising Star by using a perversion of our penalties – or maybe it was to punish April?"

"For what?" The thought had occurred to me too, a lot. But I couldn't come up with a reason that could possibly justify this brutality.

"Our penalties are specific. Harming someone is warned against by slapping the hands, praying for harm to befall another is warned against by slapping the knees, lying or misleading or corrupting an innocent is warned against by a finger flick across your lips. It's all symbolic, no one's ever hurt. Could April have done some or all of those things and someone punished her for them?"

"We have rules." It's a protest, an insistence because even with all that's happened today I can't accept this. April could not have brought this on herself. No one could.

"True. Someone who does wrong is spoken to by Kendra, myself or both. There are penalties to fit the crime but our focus is on redeeming someone who has stepped off the Path. There's never anything violent or physical; all the punishment is to your head or heart. None of us are the kind to _need_ censure or reproach."

"Suppose …" I bite the bullet. "Let's imagine for a moment. What would happen if April _had_ done something?"

"Something so severe it needed 'punishment'?"

"Lie, cheat, hurt someone, use magic to hurt, corrupt an innocent?"

"No different than the Hebrew or Christian pattern. If Kendra and I couldn't show her the error of her ways, we'd enlist the aid of her closest friend or friends and try again. If she still refused reconciliation and amendment of her life, we'd expose her crimes to the entire Coven. Never underestimate the power of public help – or public shame.

"If all efforts failed, we as a Coven would bind her power. She would have no magic to use against another, not until she freely reconciled and returned to the Right Hand Path. And then I'd probably advocate a period of probation before her powers are restored. But by no means would anyone take her into an alley and beat her, or take her to a hill and smash her bones."

He turns more toward me in the seat. "Besides, April's Wiccaning was less than a year ago. She's only been among us twenty something months and I know for a fact that she had no significant power, certainly not enough that the Coven might be obliged to bind her. She was little more than a Neo. She knew some spells, could work some charms, had a measure of talent but she was not a power."

I pull to a stop before Seamus' apartment house. "The more information I get the fewer answers I have."

He reaches for me, his hand closing about my wrist. "Sleep on it. 'Stay if thou wilt, go if thou must'," he begins the traditional leave-taking. I should be saying it, he's leaving, not me. Call it 'High Priest's prerogative'. "'Ever carry with you the love of the God and Goddess wherever you go'," he leans closer and I meet him for the kiss. If it does linger a second – or two – longer than usual his tone when he draws back admits to none of it. "'until you return it to me that we may share it in perfect love and trust'."

"So mote it be."

"Blessed Be."

I return the blessing and he is gone, walking to his door. I watch him until he goes inside – it's really not a shabby view – and when I reach for the controls I realize I can still feel his warm lips on mine.


	5. Fearful Answers

Chapter Five

Fearful Answers

All the way home I'm thinking about April and what Seamus said. There's nothing in our way that advocates violent punishment for doing wrong. Punishment, in fact, is alien to us; reconciliation is our goal. Bishop Siobhan McGee says 'we hate the sin but love the sinner' and in that Christianity and Wicca are very much in agreement.

What else had been done to April? What had been learned after I left Autopsy? I almost reach for my visiphone when I remember the time, not hard when looking out the windshield into black night. There are still answers I might get on my own, without disturbing anyone.

At least, no one alive.

Okay, what I have in mind is cheating, and the reason it's professionally frowned upon is it is absolutely inadmissible in court, but there are times I'll admit to a moment of weakness and take a shortcut. After all, if I can't take advantage of all my talents in bringing a murderer to justice then I'm in the wrong profession!

xx

When I push open my apartment door the first thing I hear is a very loud, very annoyed '_Ra__aa__oowww_!' "I'm so sorry, Sparkle," I assure her contritely. I'm usually home at a reasonable hour, not leaving this bundle of aggrieved calico fur hungry for most of a day. She sits at my heels while I lock the door, and then leads me into the kitchen, leading just inches before my feet so I nearly trip over her with every step. She is making it quite clear to me that I have been horrible in the shirking of my human duties.

It takes only a few moments to provide for my annoyed companion, and when she buries her face into the bowl beside the refrigerator I pet her lightly. She performs the feat I've never quite worked out how she manages, purring loudly while cramming prodigious volumes of food into her mouth.

I give her one last rub and step into the living room to divest myself of jacket, bag and keys, taking a moment to prepare everything to be grabbed in the morning. Then I head for my private sanctuary.

No one of my occasional houseguests who is not a Wiccan will ever see this room. Aside from bookcases containing volumes of special lore, there is only one special piece of furniture in the middle, upon which is everything I need for ceremonies of any nature.

The Altar is always prepared for use, only fresh candles and incense, salt and water are replenished as needed. I've never been the kind to tolerate looking for or gathering the equipment I need. Everything from Athame to Wand is precisely where it belongs, ready for use at a moment's notice.

Sometimes a moment is all I get.

Before I can even light a match to set the coals ablaze, ready for the incense, Sparkle strolls in behind me, rubbing her body along my legs and purring her gratitude. "Feel better now, hon?" Her 'meow' could almost make me think she understands English, or at the very least understands me. She is the only uninitiated person – okay, feline – ever to share this space with me, especially if I am raising magic. In or out though, I'd shut the door before casting a Circle. Her luck or choice where she is when I do so.

One of my friends had asked me if she's my familiar. I'd replied 'no, she's my strange'.

I return to the door. "In or out, I have to work." She answers me by plopping her bottom in front of the altar and staring up at me with green eyes that reflect the light from the hall as though they were glowing. "All right, just be good. I don't have the time or the patience for distractions tonight." I shut the door. For better or worse she's here for the duration.

x

The ceremony of preparing for and casting a Circle of Protection is an ancient one and you'd be surprised how many modern ceremonies are based in one way or another on it. I won't tell anyone the details. If you're interested, join a Coven.

In about ten minutes the air is filled with incense, power drawn from the four quarters of the compass and I'm under protection of Guardians you don't need to know about. When I'm done I stand East of the Altar and spread my hands to the North and South Guardians.

"I call upon the living spirit of April Stein. Hear me you Guardians and you Powers of the Day and of the Night, Blessed Goddess and All Powerful God, open the door between us and the Summerland. April Stein, in the names of the great and terrible Gods and Goddesses I call upon you. April Stein, in the name of Life and of Death I call upon you. April Stein, in the name of the Goddess I call upon you. Be with me now and answer to my will. In the names of the Guardians I command your presence. In the names of those who walk in the Light and in the Shadow I command your presence. In the names of the Goddess and the God I command your presence!"

The candles before me flicker brighter, the flames lick higher. All around me I can feel anger; terrible burning rage. It grows by the second, fills the room with fury. All about the Circle that protects me I feel a great, dreadful ferocity. It batters at my shields and at the Circle, not with physical force but with an incendiary wrath that overwhelms everything.

"Are you April Stein?"

If I thought the anger was terrible before, I was underestimating it. The vehemence is so overwhelming that, if it were physical or capable of breaching the Circle, I'd be afraid.

"April. Tell me who killed you."

I can only equate the blast of rage that fills the room with a nuclear detonation. If she knew what she were doing, if she'd had the time to learn the methods of a poltergeist, I'd really be in trouble. As it is, I don't waste any time.

"April Stein, I free you from this place and return you to the Summerland, asking only that you depart in peace. May the Spirit Guides convey you safely and peacefully to that land of contentment. In the name of the Goddess and God I free you and ask you to withdraw and to do no harm to anyone."

Especially me.

x

In time I feel the last of the rage dissipate. I spend a long time after that praying and gathering power, reinforcing shields, wards and protections not only in this room but elsewhere in the apartment beyond the scope of the Circle. I'm not too proud to admit that April scared the hell out of me. If this is what she has in death, then despite Seamus' estimation what did she have in life? And I truly hope, even while resolving never to do this with her again, that she doesn't hold a grudge.

When I reduce the Circle, snuff out the candles and incense and perform all the necessary final touches, I suddenly become aware something is missing. "Sparkle?"

Beyond the altar and a few bookcases and two closets, none of which are open, there is no place to hide, but when I step around the altar I find her pressed against it, her tail tucked between her legs. "It's all right, Sparkle, no one's going to hurt you." I pick her up, her muscles are so tense it's like lifting a statue, and when I open the door she kicks all four paws against my chest and launches herself a good seven feet before her paws hit the carpet and she's gone in a furry blur.

"I don't blame you a bit," I address the empty living room while clutching my battered chest. "If you find a good spot, let me know."

xxx

It's about one in the morning when I get to bed, and Sparkle still doesn't trust me enough to join me. Pulling the covers over myself, I try to lose myself in a few hours sleep, praying I won't dream of smashed limbs, cut off lips or torn-in-half hearts.

It feels like five seconds later that I'm sitting up gasping for breath, but the rising sun is clearing the buildings to my left, my blankets and bedclothes are wrapped tightly about me, drenched with sweat and more. My hair is plastered to my head and face and the dream so perfect in my memory that I look about, almost frantically, to assure myself I'm still alone. When I'm sure of it, I'm terribly sorry.

In my dream I wasn't alone, and I blame Seamus Cein and those damn lips of his for sparking what can only be his fault. Okay, it's not, and the only reason I'm mad is that it _was_ a dream!

What was it? Don't waste your breath asking. If you've had one you know, and if you haven't then I feel sorry for you. It's not the first time I dreamed of a man in my bed. With very few exceptions my life pretty much assures it's more often a dream than a reality, but this one was intense. Okay, _beyond_ intense. I pull the wet, clinging nightgown from my body, and when I turn about on the bed to put my legs down I can't miss that I'd done a lot more than sweat.

Okay, okay, it was a _lot_ beyond intense! Leave me alone, I need a shower.

An ice shower!


	6. A View from Above

Chapter Six

A View From Above

I check in first with NCIS, finding that the team is out at Quantico interviewing the regular - read full time - soldiers in April's unit. It'll take a bit of time to track down the other Reservists.

I catch up with some work at the office for the morning, using my computer to not only log my thoughts and discoveries on the case, such as they are, but to consult via visiphone with mom and her team on the progress of their side of the investigation.

Then I have to cover a myriad of details with Tina and it's nearly noon when I'm walking down the hallowed halls of Academia. Yesterday I'd never have expected to be in George Washington University's Science Building, though I'm close enough to see it from work, but such is the life of a Paranormal Private Investigator.

All right, 'P.I. Witch', happy? And my reason for being here is purely professional. I'm here to consult on an idea with a very special resource.

But first, naturally, I have to duck to the side as the bell rings to end the last morning class and I must avoid being trampled by the noontime stampede of humanity.

x

When the herd thunders off, I continue down the hall, having been guided by the sign downstairs to the Computer Department. Stopping at an open door, I'm mildly surprised not to catch the target of my search alone.

Leaning against the desk in the center of the well of the amphitheater lecture hall, a blonde girl, obviously a junior, is trying to play a very senior game with the man who is closing his briefcase upon the lectern. He looks good, a short brown beard matches his hair, but her… Blonde, bouffant and busty, I hate her already.

"Professor McGee, I really _do_ want to do well in your class," she assures him in tones that would melt the hull of a Zephyrfox Class Destroyer, "I just wanted you to know I'm always game for some extra credit."

It's all I can do not to laugh and give my presence away. If this is her idea of a seductive line, it's no wonder she needs extra credit! She leans forward and though I don't have the angle now to see more than her panty length skirt, I'm sure she's giving her Computer Forensics Professor an excellent view of her academic qualifications.

"Ms. Somers, I've already told you that I will be very happy to have you complete the course requirements – on time. If you need additional assistance, my T.A. will be happy to work with you. That's the job of a Teacher's Assistant."

"But she doesn't have your _firm hand_ on the subject."

I can see so well how hard he's holding onto his patience. "Ms. Somers, this is a poor time, I'm meeting my _wife_ for lunch in just a few minutes."

"But Professor McGee –"

This kid just doesn't get it. Does he have to write the word on the board beside them? Or more likely on her –

"Ms. Somers, I assure you that in my professional career in Computer Forensics, I have received enough whacks to the back of my head not to–"

"But Professor–"

I've had enough. "Excuse me, Professor McGee?" I announce myself loudly. They both turn to the door, surprised, but it is vastly different kinds of surprise. He looks relieved, Busty looks busted. "Administration said I could find you here. Is this a bad time?"

"Not at all, Ms. Palmer. Ms. Somers was just _leaving_."

"Yes, well," she takes a good, appraising look at me, liking me no more than I do her. I'm about five or six years older than she is, which _does_ put me closer to his age, though he's still old enough to be my father. He has three grown children nearly my age. As she walks past me, her glare is pure hatred, but she directs her voice behind her. "I'll leave you to your _studies_."

x

"Barely through the first trimester," he says, transferring his briefcase from the lectern to the desk and tugging at his brown suit, "I'm already getting this."

"I'd lose the beard. It gives you a rakish quality."

"Yeah, you're right, but after years of 'Special Agent Babyface', I had to do something."

"I wonder if she knows you could've arrested her for propositioning a Federal Agent."

"_Former_ Special Agent, thank you, and I'm afraid to bring it up. She might like handcuffs."

"Professor, I have a technical problem that–"

"Don't you 'professor' _me_, young lady!" he commands with a smile. "Get over here."

I cross the room, probably with a sappy smile on my own lips, and he enfolds me in his arms, sort of like a big, cuddly Teddy-bear. We hug away the year since we last saw each other. "Oh, uncle Tim, it's so good to see you again."

"You too," he says as we pull apart. "So, how are Jim and Michelle?"

"They're fine; they send their love." A little fib, but who cares? They would have had I told them where I was going when I'd called this morning. We spend a few minutes catching one another up on families, friends and our own lives.

x

"But you didn't brave these halls for a reunion," he says, "great as it is to see you. You said you had a technical problem."

"Kind of. I need to see if there's any high resolution satellite imagery of something in Shenandoah park two days ago."

"Two days ago?" he shakes his head. "No can do, kiddo."

"You can't get imagery from satellite records from NASA, the Pentagon or wherever?"

"Su Lin," he waves his hand expansively about the mini-Amphitheater, "you're confusing this place with Operations. Cathy Matheson's the one you want if you're thinking of hacking anywhere."

"I asked, she said it was illegal. But I'm not asking for hacking, just … peeking a little."

He strokes his beard for emphasis. "Have you any idea how many years it's been since I've had authorization to 'peek' anywhere?"

"I'm sorry," I really mean it. "It was a stupid hope."

"What, when you found out it was illegal, you right away thought of your uncle Tim?"

"I'm _sorry_!" Goddess, if he weren't smiling when he said that! Just as it stands, it sounds so terrible. "I said it was stupid, but I'm –" I stop at his upraised hand.

"Why do you need it?"

I tell him the whole story, up to my talk with Cathy, finishing with "she says everything is so closely monitored, all Government Agencies are by the North American Oversight Commission, that they can't hack anywhere without being caught."

"That's not … _strictly_ … true," he hands me a pad and pen from his pocket. "Give me the coordinates; I'll see what I can do."

"Now that's the uncle Tim I know and love," I tell him as I write.

"What, you didn't love me before?"

"Sure I did," I put my arms around him in a tight hug. He embraces me and an angry voice explodes from the doorway:

"_I knew you couldn't keep your hands off your students_!"

x

Tim jumps right out of my arms and I whirl to face a red haired woman, her purple shirt topped by an inch high stiff white collar and fronted by a silver Pectoral Cross.

"Aunt _Siobhan_! It's ME! _Su Lin_!"

The faux anger clicks off her face, replaced by a wide grin. "I know, honey," she strides into the room and we hug. Though I'm vastly relieved, Tim is gasping, clutching his chest. She looks over my head to him. "I'm sorry, a chuisle."

She'd called him 'my beloved', literally 'my pulse'. It's pretty much the only Gaelic I know, but he's in no condition to appreciate the thought.

"Don't _ever_ _DO_ that!"

"Have to keep you on the straight and narrow." Her grin belies any hint that such watch is needed.

"Put me in my _grave_ is more like it!"

"I'll make sure it's a beautiful funeral."

"Thanks," he says dryly. Then they hug and I see the real feeling in this relationship.

But when she turns back to me I really can't let the moment go without assuring her: "Your Grace, I _promise_ you that–"

"Oh hush, child, you're not telling me anything I don't already know. And drop the 'your Grace' if you please."

"Sure."

x

For the second time the reunion is a catching up on the past year since uncle LeeJay passed away, but then: "I really do have to run, there's too much to do before the gathering tonight."

"We'll pray for your friend, honey."

"Thank you." April had been brought up Catholic before finding the Right Hand Path. I believe she'd appreciate it.

"I'll call you if I can find anything from the satellites. It may take some time."

"Thank you."

I've always had a tough time when it comes to bowing out gracefully. It's usually a graceless hurry for the door, but I manage to make my departure look reasonably discreet. I pull the door behind me, taking a few moments to try and decide what to do next.

Then I notice that the shade on the window has about an inch of space and I can't resist, I bend down to peek.

What I see leaves me walking down the hall with a huge smile on my face, the cockles of my heart nice and toasty warm and with great confidence in the all pervading power of love.

xxx

When I call dad he has some things to tell me. "I didn't find any bruising. I'd thought I might find some subdural bruising," there was none on the surface. "It doesn't look like she put up any kind of struggle."

"How can that be? M.J. was a Marine, she was clamped down at wrists, ankles and neck. You're saying she didn't put up a fight?"

"I did find indications she was smothered rather than choked, so I'd say she might have been unconscious during that time."

I'm trying two different scenarios. In one, she undresses willingly and stacks her clothes neatly, then she's smothered with nothing to show she put up a fight. The other has her forced to undress. I don't like either of them.

"I have to come down there. I have to get to her clothes."

"I think I can save you a trip. Your mother says she didn't get anything off the clothes to show Stein was stressed, as though forced."

That's not good enough. I have to do it myself or I can't be sure. "Gotta do it anyway. I'll see you soon."

xx

Have you ever walked into a Forensics Lab and asked to see physical evidence in a murder investigation? If not, trust me, it's not easy. An hour later I'm in the lab with Paul Harris, wishing Abby Dwyer had never taken that Professorship in G.W.

"Paul, please try to understand, there's a lot I can learn from her clothing." The short, balding man peers at me from behind brown framed glasses as though I'm crazy.

"What can you learn?" he asks, glancing meaningfully behind him at the lab. It is packed with a vast collection of equipment that should theoretically uncover answers from the most obscure resources.

"I want to try to figure out if April removed her clothes voluntarily."

He lowers the glasses down his nose, fixing me with a myopic stare over them. "Excuse me?"

This isn't the first time Harris and I have been at loggerheads. He's an excellent scientist but Abby tempered her science with a healthy imagination and faith even in things that can't be seen. I don't think Paul Harris would ever admit to an imagination unless he could see it in his microscope or break it down in his gas chromatograph.

I try not to let my patience slip. "Paul, I can tell, by touching her clothing, if the last time it was removed it was done voluntarily or by compulsion."

"And just _how_ do you propose to do that?"

"Short answer, by touching them."

"Touching them."

"Just that."

"And you expect evidence collected and 'documented' by touching her panties will be admissible in court?"

I'm sure he mentioned the panties just to be confrontational. If Paul and I don't have confrontation, we have no relationship at all. "I expect it will help lead me a step closer to her killer. As to evidence, that's up to you and yours."

He's turned me down before. I suppose he's wondered if I would try to go over his head with the Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge, the Chief Medical Examiner or the Director. I'm not sorry to consistently disappoint him but I fight my own battles, take my own wins or losses. That's why I'm surprised when he says "Sure, why not?"

x

I'm sure I give him a deer-in-the-headlights look for a moment. "Why not?"

"If all you're going to do is to put on gloves and touch her clothes, do your little hokey-pokey, I'd like to see what you uncover."

I don't correct him that it's hocus-pocus, or more accurately a corruption of 'hoc est corpus', the Latin transubstantiation at the Mass, I know what he meant. I'll take my victory in silence.

I follow him past his staff to a storage cabinet. All of them look at me with the contempt of a scientist toward a mystic but I'm not interested in another confrontation any more than I'd wanted the first. I wait quietly while he opens the glass door, removes an evidence basket in which sits a sealed plastic bag filled with clothes. Snatching a set of latex gloves out of a convenient box, I pull them onto my hands.

Someone a little less couth might ask me if I need moonlight for this, or some special music, maybe the theme from 'One Step Beyond', but that would be beneath Paul. He's a professional, and I do respect him for it. It's just that his profession and mine seem to keep bumping heads. Anyway, he opens the bag and leaves it for me.

x

There's no need to take anything out, one garment is probably as good as any other and there are six to choose from if you consider socks and sneakers as singles. I just put my hands in and touch, letting my shields down.

As I said, I keep psychic shields up twenty four seven, it's automatic. Any witch that doesn't learn in her first year to do it leaves herself open for a boatload of baggage, 98 percent of it unwelcome and unwanted, 2 percent offensive or downright dangerous. I have to intentionally bring my protections down, something I can actually feel happening. It's hard to describe, so I won't.

Anyway, what I feel is M.J., pure and simple. These are her clothes, none of them new and her psychic pattern is all over them. Clothing is a great collector of spiritual essence and it's not something that can be washed out. It can be overwhelmed by something superior, intruded upon but never destroyed. A hundred years from now a sensitive psychic could still feel M.J. as I do now.

I try to focus on the last impressions, the ones that filled the garments in the final moments before they were removed. I look for fear, for distress … hell, I even look for lust.

Nothing. As the seconds stretch into a minute, then two, then three, I finally have to admit that I'm getting nowhere. She took them off, there was no one else who touched them, and she was not … there are no emotional peaks at all.

She was smothered, clamped down, battered, cut and murdered and when she got undressed I don't think she had any clue at all that it was going to happen.

And just as at the knoll, she might as well have been alone for all the impressions I can get off these.

At five minutes I open my eyes, give up and close the bag again. Paul is still opposite me, none of his staff have moved. "What were you able to find on the physical evidence?"

"Quite a bit," he assures me, his tone purely business. He doesn't ask what I learned, just takes the bag and puts it and the basket back into storage. He doesn't rub my nose in the fact that as far as he's concerned I've probably failed.

x

His believing that seems to make him conciliatory, or at least more willing to share. If so, then let him think I failed. I won't admit openly that I did.

"Autopsy sent down some swabs, we lifted motile sperm off them."

That's interesting. Non-motile means heads without tails, nothing mobile. In a living woman sperm remains motive for about 16-24 hours, after that it's just the heads. In a dead woman that number leaps to as much as 6 days because there's no production of such things as ... well, basically the vaginal secretions that serve to break them down. The secretions that break down sperm are no longer produced so the sperm lasts until it decays. Non-motile means she might have had sex anywhere up to 6 days before she died.

So she could have had sex up to 16, maybe as much as 24 hours on the outside, before she died.

"Any non-motile?" He shakes his head.

Not only does this give me little reasonable time line but it also gives the potential that she had sex, or was raped, on that knoll. It does, however, give me one clue as to why she showed no particular distress that I could find when scanning her impressions on the knoll. I can't say for certain what her emotional state was on that knoll, the impressions from her killer – or in this case the lack of them – interfered.

I need a lot more information if I'm going to narrow this down.

x

"What can you tell me about the DNA analysis?"

"Once I have one, I can tell you some things. You're too much like your mother; this isn't 'Star Trek: Ascendancy', this is real life. Come back in a few days."

"What other physical evidence was there?" I ask, bypassing the barb. Maybe it's deserved, mom does tend to push people - she learned that from uncle LeeJay - and neither of us has ever been known for our patience.

"We analyzed the sneaker treads, they were horizontal treads from what was probably running shoes, size 12 EE. They were too good."

"Too good?"

"Like new. We found no wear in any of the treads."

I sigh. "Figures." At his questioning expression, I feel I owe him. He's being a lot more open than usual. "M.J.'s – sorry, April's impressions were all over those clothes because they were well worn. Brand new sneakers wouldn't have absorbed many psychic impressions. If they were fresh out of the box to kill her, then even if I found them I probably couldn't trace them back to the owner. He's smart. Just as unworn sneakers will mask any traces that you could use to determine tread wear patterns, it'll work the same way for _my_ wear patterns."

xx

I stop at the door to Autopsy but dad and Sammy are on either side of a table, a naked male body between them. I'm just about to turn away when Sammy sees me and waves me in. Now that I'm unable to gracefully bow out, I step through the sliding doors, the noise making dad look back.

"Hi, Princess." He doesn't take his hands out of the man's chest.

"Hi, I just dropped in to say hello," I say as I approach the table. I lean in to give him a kiss on the cheek through the blue mask. He can't hug me with his bloody gloves and scrubs top but it's not the first time we've had to take the thought for the act.

"How goes the hunt?"

"That's what I came down for, hoping you had something for me. Oh, by the way, Tim and Siobhan McGee send their love, I saw them earlier today." I spend a few moments catching them up on old friends.

"Sammy, would you continue?" he asks, pulling off his gloves and then removing the soiled scrubs top down to his tee shirt so we no longer have to let thought substitute for act. "I found something during April Stein's autopsy that I think you'll need to know," he tells me when he lets me go.

"What is it?"

"The damage to her heart. It'd been torn in half but no rupturing of the other internal organs nor any entry into her thoracic cavity. However, the heart itself had been torn, pulled apart and we found the impressions of finger marks." He mimes fingers closing about, digging in like claws and then pulling the muscle apart.

I feel like an imbecile for even asking, but "Did you find any fingerprints?"

"Believe it or not, we did _try_. I thought it'd be a great experiment. I might have even gotten a paper out of it and made myself famous."

"Or infamous."

"More likely. Unfortunately the indentations were smooth. They did, however, compress the heart, the arteries and veins a good two inches in each of ten points."

The practice isn't as unexpected as you might think. Magic involves the focusing of power and visualization is very important. Whoever did this visualized very well indeed.

x

"What else did you find that can help?"

"I found quite a bit. How helpful it'll be is for you Investigators to decide. She did have intercourse, which I think you already know. Aside from the major wounds, there was nothing wrong with her. I found no bruising, no healing or calcified bones, nothing really at all. She seems to have lead an uneventful life in that sense."

"So you're saying she probably wasn't forced."

He takes a moment to answer, not wanting to commit himself and distract the investigation. "All I'm saying is I have nothing but a pile of 'no's. No bruising, no scrapes, no visible injuries of any kind until someone hit her with the sledgehammer."

"What did he use to smother her?"

"Judging from what Paul found when I sent him a sample of her brain tissue, the CO2 levels in her blood spiked to 100 percent several times. They were brief, she recovered several times, but I think he used plastic or some other non-porous material."

"That'd account for the rapid spikes–"

"You know," Sammy cuts in, "you two have the weirdest father / daughter talks of any family I know."

xxx

For the rest of the day I spin my wheels. Okay, using my office computer to research April's background, employment history, recent credit purchases and so forth, supplementing the research done by NCIS, isn't exactly unproductive, but at the end of five hours I'm no closer to figuring out who killed her or why.

A word about the research might be in order. Don't tell anyone but the kind I was doing is not what aunt Ziva might have called 'kosher'. I'd actually learned quite a bit growing up around agents for whom covert came between lunch and dinner. It's true I need help from uncle Tim with the tough parts of breaking into NASA and other facilities, but backgrounding and tracking someone is bush league stuff. I've been tempted to bookmark the various facilities on my computer but, though I might occasionally be crazy, I'm not stupid. I don't need the authorities backtracking me.

Bottom line: M.J. worked for Amiran Advertising Company. Her biggest client is 'Beefo Dog Food'. I remember that ad but from what I read it wasn't her best work. She doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, doesn't do drugs. Her nights are spent either on the town or on a keyboard, depending on the weather. She's never had a parking ticket, violation or accident; has never been arrested, never even disturbed the frapping peace.

The only reason I can think of for anyone to kill her is for being too frapping average.

Sorry, M.J.

Anyhow, by the time I'm done with the computer files and my office the sun is setting and I've got to get to the Wiccan Temple. I change into a green skirt and blouse combo, my favorite Pentacle dangling between my breasts. I bid goodnight to Tina, put on my jacket and I'm out the door, ready for whatever the Cosmos is going to throw at me.

I take back that last. Every time I think I'm ready, the Goddess teaches me what she considers to be my much needed lesson.


	7. The Temple

Chapter Seven

The Temple

The Wiccan Temple is actually an old K of C hall, huge and opulent, with one tremendous room for our major feasts and a multitude of what used to be offices, even a caretaker's apartment, on the second floor. I'm told the Knights of this Council had nearly a thousand members back in the 1940's when they built the great stone structure, only to have to sell it 60 years later to pay the real estate taxes.

Anyway, it's ours now and your average Knight wouldn't recognize the place. Oh, the outside is little changed, other than taking down the Knightly signage, but inside it's a place where any witch can find a home. We don't just allow other Wiccan Covens to use it, that wouldn't be economical, but other Pagan or Neo-Pagan groups can rent space for their own customs as well as join us for all the Esbats and Sabbats. Rising Star decides what goes up on the walls.

Tonight's a closed night. You don't need a dues card (what's that?) to get in, there are less than twenty of us in the city now. As I said earlier, two of us, Seamus Cein and Mike Taylor, are men and they don't seem to mind the imbalance.

I'm not quite late, but later than I wanted to be. I'd really wanted to be here first so I could watch people's reactions as they enter. As it is, there are six women in the spacious main chamber already, not counting Kendra – or Seamus of course – but though the announcement isn't going to be made until it's made by Kendra, you can't summon the entire Coven on less than a day's notice and not raise curiosity.

After paying my respects to Kendra and Seamus, as though I weren't the one responsible for this meeting, I mingle with the others. We're all friends here, but I eventually gravitate to Fiona. We're the same age and get along best, but I still pretend I don't know the reason for the summons.

I watch the others as they enter, carefully limiting myself to sight and all my other 'mundane' senses, looking for things like a mundane investigator would. It's tempting to subject everyone who walks through the door to a probe, if I were _stupid_.

Okay, uncle LeeJay had his famous rules, here's Su Lin's Rule One: You do not use a psychic probe on a psychic. You're more than likely to get a metaphysical slap to the back of the head. Sensitives tend to be sensitive about that kind of thing; permission and all. It's kind of like a strange guy going up to a girl and kissing her. No, I take that back, she might like it. More like walking up to someone and frisking her, hard enough even when you have a badge.

The use of darkcraft stains the soul and to use it for _murder _paints a black on black picture that simply can't be hidden. I don't mean literally black, but if I were to tell someone about a miasma of evil that wouldn't be understood either.

Suffice it to say that a psychic probe would reveal it but it must be a really deep, intense probe. A fellow psychic wouldn't miss it; I suspect even a mundane might be aware of it.

That's not to say that, given adequate justification, I wouldn't do it. I did it with Kendra and Seamus last evening to see where I stood; but it's not the sort of thing for which a judge could - or would - grant a warrant.

More than half of us are here when I see the door across the room open again. I'm reminded of my hubris earlier this evening, when I thought I was ready for anything. The Goddess is teaching me my lesson. I cross the room, a smile on my face, getting all my mental cursing, ranting and raving out of my system before I greet the newcomer with a kiss on her cheek. My whisper is barely loud enough for her to hear. "What in _Hades_ are you doing here?"

"Don't use that kind of language to your mother," she commands, lips smiling but eyes hard.

x

"Sorry, mom," I say as I draw back, my own smile as phony as hers. Oh, it's not that I'm not happy to see her, don't ever get me wrong about that. I love my mother but her presence as a known Federal Agent can only screw things. We'd been clear just yesterday about a separation of investigations. "I wasn't expecting you."

"Really?" her smile is still sweet though her teeth could bite the head off a carp. "High Priestess Little was very explicit, full summons of the entire Coven. I'd hate to think you'd arranged that and didn't think it through."

x

It's amazing how a parent can cut you to the quick and someone standing five feet away could never notice. I don't even try to say that I'd expected her to just ignore the summons.

"Look, nothing's changed," she directs, "we'll play this whichever way the High Priestess serves it, though I'll get to her first if I can. If things play out as I think they will, I'm still running the official investigation and you're still one of the equally curious. We'll mingle with the crowd," she looks over the eleven people, "such as it is, but not be together again tonight."

"Great."

"Good luck."

"You, too."

x

Well, it goes just about the way we expect it to. I'm standing in the northeast corner where I can watch everyone when the High Priestess makes her announcement from the dais. I get to read shock, grief, but if there's any guilt in there I don't see it. Only one person shows foreknowledge, but I can discount Seamus Cein because I'm the one who told him.

I do have to admit that Kendra Little plays it well. No sooner does she announce M.J.'s death than she brings mom to the fore, announcing her as a Federal Agent investigating the death of Lance Corporal Stein. Mom doesn't even glance at me as she makes a general appeal to anyone with information, any suspicion at all, to contact her at NCIS. After the Ceremony of Remembrance and Committal to the Summerland, she begins to work the room. She's a consummate professional.

She doesn't interview _me_ because there's no way I'll ever be able to work the crowd later once people have it in their head that I'm the daughter of a Federal Agent. She barely acts like she knows me but you have to be pretty blind not to match up complexion, eyes (though mine are green they're still Asian) and black hair, though I'd inherited some of dad's curl as curves. Still, she does the best she can to distance us so I can do my own job.

x

The gathering breaks into small knots of shocked friends, the general mood just what you'd expect. The High Priestess has asked that no one leave before they can be interviewed, but there's something about sudden, senseless, shocking death that makes people want to stay together. I spend most of my time wandering from one friend to the next, listening more than talking. People seem to want to talk. I'm content to just keep my ears open.

I'm also one of the last three people left as midnight approaches. Mom left before eleven without even glancing at me, more to protect our anonymity. As I said earlier, hardly anyone knows what I do for a living and I'm not going to tell them now. When it's just myself, Kendra and Seamus and we lock up and turn off the lights, Kendra heads for the office and Seamus comes over to me.

"I'm working with you on this case."

"The _Hell_ you are!"

x

Don't ever drop a bomb on me when I'm working, especially don't make it as ludicrous as this one.

"High Priestess' orders."

"Screw _that_! I work alone." I'm also tired and just a little out of sorts. A little? "You're not an _Investigator_. What the hell qualifications do _you_ bring to this?"

"I'm–"

"You're an electrician!"

"I am the High Priest of this Coven," he says with tight and wounded dignity. "And I can do something you can't; I can compel the Coveners to answer your questions."

"I do just fine with a badge and, if need be, NCIS can get a subpoena." I pull up short, raising my hands to stop his retort. There's no need for us to fight when we're on the same side.

"Look, let's be reasonable. You are not qualified to investigate crime scenes and interview witnesses or suspects. You're a great High Priest and I respect you for that, but–"

"Kendra and I want to make sure the interests of the Coven are protected–"

"And I respect that too, but protecting their interests is why _I'm_ on this case with NCIS. They're doing the mundane work, the profane work, I'm working the inside. This is not going to become a witch hunt."

"That's not funny."

"What made you think I was laughing?"

He backs off too. For a moment we both have to back off.

"Look," he finally says, "there has to be a way we can work together on this."

"Why?"

"All right, put that way I don't have an answer. Kendra wants me in the loop–"

"I have no problem with keeping you in the loop, until you can't be anymore."

"–and she is High Priestess, her word is Coven law."

"Seamus, I had an 'uncle' who used to slap people in the back of the head at this point. This is not a Wiccan issue; this is a murder investigation involving Wiccans. The two are as far apart as you can get and still be on the same planet. If you were a lawyer I couldn't say 'get the hell out of here' because whoever we focus on would deserve your help, but you're not a lawyer so get the hell out of here."

x

I can see in his eyes that this was the stopper. He'd played all his cards and I'd trumped him. To his credit I can see his point, and Kendra's; they care and want to make sure the people under their care are protected. Kendra is the lawyer, and though she couldn't represent whoever we focus on if she's to be a material witness, she's qualified. He's not.

To his credit, he seems to know when to quit.

"Okay, you win." He gives me a smile. "Could you at least drive me home? I'd as soon not face 'the wrath of the goddess' tonight."

I grin. With a little work, he could be quite charming. "Sure."

x

The trip home – his home, not mine – is quiet. I spend most of it trying to come up with some kind of reasonable compromise that will allow my friend to save face without screwing everything to death.

When I turn onto his block I venture my best option. "Look, I can let you sit in on some of the initial interviews, except they're not going to be 'interviews'. I'm going to chat with some of the Coveners, subtly and not letting on that I'm a detective if they don't already know. You can act like we're together but this is unofficial." Even as I talk, I'm sure I'm setting up a disaster.

_This'll never work_, a voice in my head tells me, and I'm inclined to believe her.

"But the first time you blow my cover I'll kick your ass."

_ Y__ou're screwing yourself__,_ that voice says.

"Fine," he says.

"Okay, done."

_You're going to be sorry_, that voice taunts. Why does it have to sound so much like me? And why is she the one making all the sense?

He gives me the same formal departing lines as last night, including the kiss. But why is it that when he pulls away I still want his lips on mine? Why can I still feel them as he gets out of the car?

_Because he's hot as hell and you haven't been laid in nearly a year,_ the voice tells me.

"Leave me alone," I mutter, wondering just when I'd gone so far off the deep end that I started arguing with myself.

I watch him walk toward his door. _Stop staring at his butt_.

"Shut the fuck up."


	8. Hidden Feelings

Chapter Eight

Hidden Feelings

I wake up with my heart pounding, my wet nightgown plastered and twisted about my body so tightly I can't pull it off until I'm out of bed – except I really don't want to get out of the bed. I'm panting too hard and my body is experiencing that post-orgasmic bliss that follows explosions.

"Oh – my – _Goddess_!" I am _so _sorry I woke up but I suspect I screamed, I tend to do that a lot – and I am also sorry I'm alone.

Really alone, I notice. I must have kicked Sparkle off the foot of the bed sometime during the night. I remember only spending a long, tear-the-bed sheets night with–

"Seamus." Just saying his name makes the dream real, the flare of pleasure the sears me makes me reach for myself and also snaps me awake. I haven't done any such thing as this since I was sixteen!

At least, not in as much as I can remember.

I sit up, pulling at the restricting nightgown as far from me as I can manage, it's wrapped tightly about me. Good thing it's only this bad; I suspect if the dream had been any more intense it would be knotted. I drop my head into my hands, feeling the hot perspiration. "Dana and Dagda, what the _Hell_ is wrong with me?"

_Two nights_. Okay, he's _really_ good looking – and probably hot as Hades himself – but I'm acting like a lustsick schoolgirl. I'm not saying I have never had an evening of solo pleasure with my mind on a man – or two – but give me a fucking _break_! I look behind me, anxious that I didn't rip the sheets.

I get up, seeing without wanting to – or needing to – that most of the wetness I leave behind isn't from sweating like a one-dollar whore. And this for the second time in two mornings! Pulling the second set of rapidly cooling sheets and blankets to the floor and pealing the plastered nightgown off my body, I know that not only do I need yet another cold shower but I'd better do some laundry _soon_.

x

My first stop of the day is M.J.'s apartment, and if you don't think that's a tough call you've no idea what police work is like. NCIS has jurisdiction over M.J.'s place and only a handful of people – okay, half a handful – know I'm working with NCIS. That's why it takes nearly two hours to get in, and I have Cathy Matheson, one of mom's Field Agents, supervising. The others are back at Quantico. Gathering information is not a one day operation and I sense Cathy would rather be there than here.

"Now we have to be careful," I advise her as we look over the apartment, "this can be dangerous."

"How?"

I'm not thrilled to be here, maybe that's why I'm a little short with Cathy. I've already had one unpleasant encounter with M.J. on my home ground, now we're on hers. "M.J. was a witch, and sometimes influences can linger. Some of the more powerful Adepts, which I'll grant you she wasn't, can establish defenses that can linger even after death."

"Yeah, right." Her tone communicates her silent response: 'we've been over every inch of this place the other night and nothing happened'.

Normally I don't have a problem with people's skepticism, it's actually a help in my job when I'm underestimated, but something about Matheson's attitude ticks me off. As we split up and she walks toward the bedroom I turn from her, point back at the tightest part of her pants and apply just a smidgen of power. She jumps with a yelp, grabs her tush.

"What's wrong?" I ask, turned away but looking back.

"Something just jabbed my ass!"

"Told you," I remind her dismissively and resume my scan of the room. Okay, I _admit _it, it was _petty_, all right? I'll say a prayer to Dana later.

At least I don't have to worry about corrupting a crime scene. I can certainly tell my talent from anyone else's and there's no physical evidence involved. In fact, from the moment I walked in I could sense only one source of power and it definitely had M.J.'s flavor.

Maybe a word on flavor is in order. It's subjective but as distinctive in its own way as a fingerprint. That's why, on the knoll, I'd wanted a trace of our mystery assailant. Had I gotten it, I'd've been able to recognize it when I got close to him or her. That's also why whoever we're hunting took such measures to hide his or her psychic impressions.

x

"We've been all through this place, followed by the Forensics unit. I don't know what you expect to find." She's polite enough not to add 'and why you're wasting my time.'

None of mom's teammates are believers in the occult, and Cathy's the least likely to be anyway. She's the team tech, a wizard on the computer but she likes the provable, the material. In her own way, she's much like Tony DiNozzo.

Can't say I blame her. Even mom doesn't bring the metaphysical to the job and her team isn't going where she won't. She could, she easily could; she did when she was the 'Probette' Tony still calls her. But since moving up the ranks she'd left the improvable behind. It doesn't work when the only thing that you can bring before the JAG or a civilian judge is 'I know'.

My work is different. A mundane Investigator builds a case from one clue to the next, gathering and piecing evidence together to track down a suspect. Often I name the guilty party and give Metro whatever evidence I found, but several times that evidence was minimal indeed.

Okay, it may not sound fair, but believe it or not, it's legal. It falls under the same laws that govern tips, a.k.a. none. I'm not arresting anyone, I just tell the police who to look at. The only difference between me and a tipster is that when I do give them a name, a hundred percent of the time I'm right.

That's not to say I use magic all the time. That would be cheating. Okay, it would be cheating more than I do cheat, but I still have to have investigative skills. I still have to hunt down clues and interview witnesses and do everything another P.I. has to do.

Why? I'm not the Goddess, that's why. I'm not omniscient. I don't have a crystal ball. I have a computer. I have a scrying mirror, which is great for looking at things and is a whiz when it comes to travel. But I have legs, hands and a head and I get more use out of them. In fact, most of the time I get the use in just that order.

That's why I'm here, with my chaperone, because I tried the shortcut already and nearly got my psychic ass kicked. So now I'm doing things the strictly mundane way – not that NCIS would ever tolerate my doing it any other way. I'm not saying Cathy's here as a watchdog, let's not be insulting, but I have to play this one 'according to Hoyle'. Their Hoyle, not mine.

"M.J. was a witch," I tell Cathy, raising my voice to be heard in the bedroom, "the forensic team and even your team looked over this place but maybe I can see something that might be significant, something that wouldn't stand out to someone else."

She comes back. "The boss is a witch too," she 'reminds' me, "for longer than _you_."

x

Her tone snaps a lot into place. I finally realize Cathy's not aggravated at the witchcraft per se, nor is this NCIS vs. Otherworld Investigations. She's mad because the daughter is coming in and trying to trump the boss.

"Cathy, I'm not here to trump my own mother."

"Aren't you? That's not how Ken and Bill and I see this. The boss didn't solve this overnight so the Director brings in an outside 'consultant' who just happens to be a powerful psychic to work her own angle. We're busting our butts using real detective work to figure out who killed Lance Corporal Stein and why. Do you know how it'll look for the boss if her _daughter_ saunters in and hands us the perp on a silver platter?"

I'm stunned, so much so that it takes me a moment to admit "Cathy, I'm not sure what to say–"

"_Goodbye_!"

"–that'll make clear to you that this isn't a competition between mom and me."

"There isn't. I like you, Su Lin, and it's only the respect I have for your mother that makes me say this so politely, but take your magic wand and your crystal ball and get the fuck out of here so we can work this case without your interference!"

"Boy, I'm glad that was the polite version." But my attempt to dull her anger only sharpens it and she actually takes a step toward me as if about to throw me out physically. "Cathy, I had no idea how you three felt but I swear to you you've got it wrong. I was called in to help, by mom, but there's no way I want to make her look bad by it."

"Well, except for failing I don't see how you can avoid it."

The horrible thing, I realize, is that "You're probably right. But please, trust us enough to let us work that out."

I watch her work to quench her fire, fire I never knew was kindled. The high regard in which they hold mom is enough to make them fight even her family for her. I wonder if she knows.

"Su Lin, like I said earlier, we like you and don't have anything against you, magic included. We'll work together. The boss says we're working together on two fronts, the legal and the magical, and the Director also says we're working together. I've thought of you as a good person but I want you to understand this, and it comes from the three of us."

"Yes?"

"You screw the boss over and you've made three enemies."

x

I believe her. I also believe there is no oath I could take that she would believe. I don't even try. In the end, it's only the end that matters. "Can we get back to work?"

She nods, and that's all the answer I'm going to get. As we start looking about the room an uncomfortable silence hangs between us. I'm not sure how long it'll take to lift. I'm not sure what _can_ lift it.

I move into the bedroom for a look around. I suspect Cathy'd just as well not spend any more time in the same room with me than she has to, truce notwithstanding. She was right about one thing; they and the Forensics team have done a thorough job. There are traces of fingerprint powder on everything and indications that many items have been found. I'll find out later what they are.

This is a cookie-cutter one-bedroom apartment just fine for a bachelorette. In the bedroom closet is a variety of seasonal clothing, suitable for the changing weather from late summer into early fall. Boxes in the back have been opened, examined and closeted again.

The bed is unmade, which I find a bit odd because, of all those people I know, the only ones I know who make their beds in the morning are military or recently ex-military. April is – was – a Lance Corporal but maybe she's more like me in other ways than magic. My bed usually looks thoroughly slept in when I leave for work, and at night I just drag the covers back over me. Today I left it looking like a bomb hit it. Damn Seamus Cein anyway! Stay out of my dreams why don't you?

I stand beside the bed, put my hands out over the mattress, close my eyes and relax, open my senses to perception normally filtered. I was right, I decide, we are alike. She didn't have any help messing up the blankets. But she didn't tear through them either, just left them as they were.

Then again, I didn't sense anyone in Shenandoah. And she did have sex not long before she died. Paul Harris definitely told me they'd found the little buggers in her – but I neither see nor sense anything. Seeing is quite enough, what I _don't_ see is far more telling than what I do. Wherever she had her fun, it was definitely not here.

I'd better check with dad, see what he found in that autopsy. I realize I should have done so already. Then again, I decide, it's not yet urgent; if he'd found anything monumental he'd have called me.

x

There is only one section of the room that contains things you definitely wouldn't find in the average career girl's home, and that's on the far side of the room beside one of the windows. There's a round table of dark wood, on it is inlaid a lighter colored star, just the outline, whose points touch the table edges. It's already set up with the traditional equipment of our trade, including bowls, salt, wand, cord, statue, incense, athame, brazier, pentagram and more. It's all the necessary equipment for performing directed magic and quite definitely a reason why I needed to be here.

"Why is all this stuff out?" I mutter. Most Wiccans store their paraphernalia until ready for use. I don't, but does that mean we have this in common or was she working a spell or ritual and didn't put everything away?

"The boss wondered the same thing."

Cathy makes me jump and I bite back a curse. How could I get so distracted she could sneak up on me?

"This equipment would normally be stored until it's needed," I tell her to cover myself.

"Stored where?"

It's a reasonable question. "I keep my own altar ready for a moment's notice but I also have a room devoted to the craft. I need to know if this is always like this because she has only three rooms, or was she using it before she died?"

"Can't you tell?"

"It's not like a gun where you can smell or test if it's been fired."_ Or is it?_ "When you got here," I point to one brass bowl, "was this wet?"

"No, the boss checked. But wouldn't it be dried off?"

"Normally no. The water and wine are blessed, they wouldn't be wiped off. They might be drunk, then the bowl would be cleaned, but it wouldn't be just wiped. There're particular options for disposing of 'leftovers'." I look around for but don't see any plants, though this room has two windows, plenty of sunlight. "Everything should be cleaned so the lack of liquid isn't as significant as the presence of iiiiiit…."

"What?"

I bend down, sighting along the surface of the altar, checking if my eyes are playing tricks on me. In the center of the altar, where the mahogany is inlaid with the lighter wood pentagram, is an inverted pentagon about ten inches from top to lower point. It doesn't fit flush with the surface. It's about a millimeter or less higher. Next to the window as the altar is, it's noticeable only because of the shadow cast on the edge of the lighter wood that surrounds it.

I can understand how it'd been missed. They'd inspected the apartment in the night with room lights on; now the sun is shining on it and the shadow's barely a millimeter wide.

The statue of Dana stands right in the center and I reverently pick it up and move it aside, then use my fingernails to pry the pentagon out. It takes several tries. I could use a knife, but I don't want to risk damaging the wood.

When I get the pentagon out the underside is hollowed out but there are folded papers in the compartment under it. The wood used to sit flush with the altar top, but there are a few too many envelopes. I take the top one and open the letter.

It's obvious this is more than a clever hidey-hole. Whatever these letters are, they focused strongly on whatever ceremony April was conducting.

I try to keep my surprise at the sender's name to myself. It only convinces me that, good as I might be, my aim can sometimes be terrible. I'd come so close and missed so ineptly. I also don't have to read very much of the first letter to feel the chill go through my body.

I can barely manage more than a whisper. "Ohhhh holy _fuck_!" I finally know – I _think _– the 'why' even if I don't have the 'who'. I glance at Cathy, who's reading it over my shoulder. "Call the others."

"What is it?"

I was right. So was mom when she called me in on this case. Cathy's read as much as I have and doesn't recognize the significance. I feel a chill go through me and can't force my voice above a strained whisper.

"A reason for murder."


	9. Followed

Chapter Nine  
Followed

It takes a half hour for mom, Bill Parsons and Ken Smalley to arrive from Quantico but in that time we've read all eleven letters and searched the apartment again for more. Handling the papers with latex gloves doesn't interfere with my getting psychic impressions from them. I probe them more thoroughly with my psychic senses than with my mundane, all the while wondering why the Goddess would throw me – us – a curve ball like this.

However, by the time the team arrives I've called Tina at the office and she's found the reason. It's even a good one.

Cathy lets the others in and when they come into the bedroom I try to hand mom the letters. She makes me wait until she puts on gloves, then she takes them.

"They're all from Erin McGee," I tell them, hardly necessarily.

Bill Parsons peers over mom's shoulder. "Isn't she–?"

"Professor and Bishop McGee's daughter," mom finishes.

"She's in the seminary, isn't she?" Ken asks.

"I checked with Tina," I tell them. "She looked them up, they were in college together, George Washington University."

Mom's eyes meet mine, we've both said this a thousand times but, "The Goddess is having too much fun with us."

"Tell me about it. I was just at GW yesterday to see uncle Tim. In fact I saw Siobhan there too."

"Right family, wrong generation."

"Boss?" Bill asks.

"What is it?" she asks, not looking up.

"What do they _say_?"

She smiles, shakes her head ruefully. "Sorry. These are increasingly detailed discussions on April Stein's request for spiritual guidance."

"From a Seminarian?"

"It's reasonable. They might have met in GW, Erin's hardly likely to go anywhere else, come to think of it. The family thing can just be coincidence."

"Why's Stein writing to her?"

"She wants to renounce Wicca and become a Christian – again." M.J. had been raised Catholic before finding what she – apparently – had wanted in life.

"And someone killed her for that?"

"Five demerits."

x

I can see this stings Ken. Mom had long ago started an unofficial merit system, her way of rewarding someone for good work or slapping them down for saying or doing something stupid, for not using their talents effectively. You can't cash the merits in, but you still want to be thought of as doing well and a demerit stings. It doesn't have the same literal sting as uncle LeeJay's back-of-the-head 'wake-up calls', but sometimes I think it's more effective.

"No one's established that this has anything to do with why she died. Until we find out, this is just one piece of the puzzle."

"Su Lin said this was a reason for murder," Cathy tells her.

"I'm saving up for Su," she says ominously. Unlike her team, I _do_ get the back-of-the-head treatment, at least I used to. Uncle LeeJay's influence was strong, especially on a young agent.

I miss him.

x

Mom inspects the letters, I can tell she's trying to focus on what's 'between the lines'. "I don't want to just call her," she muses. "I'd rather do it face-to-face. She's in Mercer Theological Seminary, Garden City."

"That's Long Island."

She doesn't do more than shift her eyes toward Bill; I can see he regrets that input. "I'm also not taking most of a day out to fly out there."

If the hint were any heavier I'd get squished by it. "I can get there," I admit, not relishing the idea. I might have finished it 'no problem' except it's definitely a problem.

Of course, I can't say aloud why I don't jump at the prospect. One, it has to be done if we're going to get the personal contact we need and, two, my reluctance is personal.

"I know." Her tone tells me privately that she's both sympathetic and adamant, a bad combination. She acknowledges my phobia but isn't going to let me off the hook. She can't. This is murder.

To her team she says; "You three go over this apartment again with a microscope, see what more you can find about her plans. Su Lin, you and I will go immediately to your office."

"Yes, ma'am." I don't even try.

"Meantime," she looks to her team, "I want to know every secret she has."

"What did you find at Quantico?" Cathy's just a moment ahead of me.

"We interviewed some more of her colleagues, plus two of the Reservists from her unit. So far as anyone knows, there's no reason to kill her."

"You believe them?"

"Never."

'Guilty until proven innocent' may not be the American way but it _is_ the NCIS way, my way - and that of most of my colleagues for that matter.

xxx

By the time we're ten minutes out, I'm talking with Tina on my visiphone, keeping my eyes on the road and not on the unit clipped to the dashboard. Mom has a mirrored compact out, checking her face. "I need to make sure she's there and let her know I'm coming."

/Yeah, you don't want to Transition in on her unannounced and scare the life out of her./

"Right."

/I'll get the number and have it arranged by the time you get in./

"Thanks, Teen." The screen goes black and I cut the circuit and glance at mom seated next to me. She's using an eye liner, hardly the best thing to do in a moving car, and her eyes are locked on that mirrored compact. "Using the Scrying mirror for transport is about the hinkiest thing there is." I fall back on Abby Dwyer's description rather than saying what I'm thinking. Mom doesn't like how she says my language has deteriorated since I moved out last year.

"I know. I've done them before you were born," she says, speaking into the compact. "Frankly they're safer than the freeway in rush hour. And I'm not going."

"You're not?"

"ScryTran is a solo thing; two active minds in the vortex at the same time screws up the targeting. You could bring Carson back because he was under your spell, but the two of us trying it is a duplication of resources and an unnecessary risk. I'm going to treat this like an interview in Interrogation, I'll watch from Obs."

"Okay."

"And while we're moving, let's consider whether Ken is right." She checks her right eye in the mirror. "Do you think Corporal Stein was killed because she was going to leave the Coven?"

"We're not a … whatever," I insist, distracted by her attention to the mirror. It's not like her. She also knows better than to think such a thing about us. I feel strange defending us to the one who brought me in, but I'll play Advocate for them any day.

x

"People are free to come and go as they wish." She uses the powder puff on her cheek. "We accept people, sometimes they drift away." Every time I glance at her she's using that damned mirror, her eyes, her forehead, it's very distracting. She's not normally so concerned with her looks. "We have people leave the life … come back … Mom, what the hell are you doing?"

"I've warned you about your language, I don't like it," she admonishes into the compact.

"Sorry, what in _Hades_ are you doing?" Not very contrite but I'm aggravated. She doesn't like my language, I don't like being told off. "You've been checking your face ever since we pulled out."

"I'm not checking my face, honey," she tells me as she checks her left eye, "I'm checking the blue Chevrolet Achisma that's been following us since we left Stein's."

My eyes snap to the rear view mirror, but "There's no Achisma."

"Two blocks back, sometimes drifts up close, sometimes falls back. He's good, let us get around that last corner and didn't hurry to close."

I realize then that it's an ensorcelled compact, letting her see what's behind her without being blocked by her own head. Very useful, I must make one of those. "'I have much to learn, Master'."

"Finesse. All the power in the world can't outweigh a few ounces of finesse."

"I have him. Just a block back but I can lose him on the next corner." That snaps her eyes from the mirror to me.

"The only reason your head's not ringing like a bell is that you're driving! Haven't I taught you anything? I don't _want_ to lose him."

x

There's really something about parental expectations that seems to bring out the Probie in me. Either that or I'm getting senile at 24. "My building has three elevators. All you have to do is look at the display to see where we're going."

"Su Lin, he knows exactly where we're going, that's why he's staying so far behind. The only question is: does he care enough about what we're _doing_ to follow us all the way up?"

We have to wait about five minutes to find out. When we get to Virginia North and I pull into the underground parking lot mom jumps out as soon as we dip below street level. She takes a position on the right side as I continue down. By the time I park, she's walking down the ramp. "He didn't slow down and we didn't lose him. He doesn't want to confront us on your home turf."

"You have a description."

"No."

"_No_?"

"He's good. Screened windows black out everything, license plate blocked out. He's using micromesh on the windows. He can see out, no one can see in."

"Micromesh is illegal on private cars."

"Side windows, a misdemeanor. Not every LEO even hits it up unless he stops you for something else or you invite it by doing the back – or the front."

"So, do you get a cab back?"

"See, you did learn something. I'll let you know if it's me he wants or if he's interested in you."

"Or both of us."

"There is that. But I'm the Fed operating in the open."

"Which means you've also got a big red and white target painted on the back of your head."

x

She takes a moment to think this over. "No, too soon. He can't know how much we know. He won't hit me, or you, until he knows or suspects we're on to him. The killing of Corporal Stein was well planned. Hitting the investigator two days into the case is a sign of desperation, not planning."

"Then I'm the target, not you."

"Why?"

"He's powerful, powerful enough to shield himself from us, but he's also smart. You're NCIS, I'm the P.I., the face of 'Otherworld Investigations'. Even if he were to _know_ the head of the team investigating _Corporal_ Stein is a witch, he's not going to move against you. Right now M.J.'s murder is interesting but could go cold if you don't find clues and he hasn't left any physical – or psychical – ones.

"He hits me and it's unfortunate but I'm self employed and – sorry – the only one in his class. He hits _you_, the case gets bumped up to Code Red and Tony DiNozzo calls in every Agency in the bi-state area plus LEOs of all flavors. Whoever it is knows that. Hit a cop and every badge in this part of the country rallies around, that's the unwritten law."

"Nice to know I'm highly regarded, even if it is after I'm dead. But right now no one's getting hit. We're looking for information, he's probably looking for information."

"Then he's going to be on our tails for a good long time," I conclude.

"And we're oblivious."

"Of course."

"Fine. Let's get to your mirror and see what Erin McGee has to tell us."

xxx

We don't have a lot of time to socialize but Tina knows that already. She confirms Erin McGee is in her room on Long Island and is expecting me. I don't have to ask if Tina prepared her for _how_ I'll be coming, but there's prepared and then there's prepared. I'll know soon how well McGee is.

In my office, to the left of the door, hangs what looks like a perfectly ordinary mirror, six feet high by two and a half wide. In fact, to a mundane that's all it is, a convenient item for a quick fashion check before leaving the office. Only when the proper spells are cast is it anything more.

I have one of the letters McGee wrote, I need it in order to find her. I've met her often but I've never been to Garden City.

"Once I'm there, you can watch–"

"Eggs, honey." It's a shorthand way of reminding me of the old admonition 'do not teach your grandmother to suck eggs'. She taught me how to do this.

You can use a Scrying mirror in two ways, to watch or to travel, but not both ways at once. I prefer to watch because I _hate_ what happens when I travel. Maybe that's why the nerves. Maybe? Once I'm through mom will 'activate' the monitoring feature and lock in on me.

I don't wait. Hesitating doesn't help, I have to get it over with and I'm not going to let anyone – especially Tina – see how this scares the life out of me. Mom knows but I never admitted my phobia to anyone else, particularly not Teen. We're friends as much as employer and employee but there are limits.

Su Lin's Rule Two: I do _not_ admitto fear.

Closing my eyes, I concentrate upon the spell, lock my attention on the author of the letter in my hand and step through the mirror.


	10. Erin

Chapter Ten

Erin

I force myself, against my terror, to open my eyes. I'm not proud of being afraid and I'm trying to fight this, so I force myself to look. Though I'm walking through blackness, flashing lights of every color that would beautiful staying still hurtle at me at a thousand miles an hour. Bands and streamers of light swirl and shoot past me in a mad display of mind-bending color.

It's utterly silent. There should be rushing wind and insane sound effects, it's rather worse that there aren't. I know the maelstrom isn't solid, but that still doesn't break the conviction that if one of these hurtling lights hits me I'll never know it. I'll be dead, my body smashed to atoms.

Okay, it's not true, they flash past me and through me and don't hurt me – leave me alone. I'll never _not_ be terrified.

Then a room appears around me as I step in; a plain room with a dresser and door before me, a screech and loud crash behind me. I'm all the way in now, leave the vortex and turn.

Erin is stuck on the floor between desk and bed, absolute terror engraved on her face. She's wearing a long black cassock which will certainly hinder her from extricating herself from the tight space.

Her white faced, wide eyed terror reminds me that in the times I've seen people arrive by ScryTran, I've never seen it from behind. Just as the surface of a mirror is flat, so is the plane through which I materialize.

I've probably given Erin an anatomy lesson she'll remember in her nightmares for the rest of her life.

x

I go to her, extend my hand and almost fall on top of her as the Transition vertigo hits me full force. I cover my face, fight it back, force my body to adjust faster than it wants to as I sway dizzily.

When I've pushed the vertigo back enough to be sure I can stand without staggering, I plant my feet firmly and open my eyes. Erin's staring up at me in a welter of terror and confusion.

"I'm so sorry," I assure her in my sincerest tones, dizzy but sincere. "I didn't mean to scare you." Hey, I tried!

"_Sweet __**Jesus**_! I – you –" Even after those few seconds she can't seem to think of what to say. I can't blame her. She's trembling, panting for breath. I've obviously scared the life out of her. I resolve never to be behind a witch who ScryTrans in on me.

I reach out to help her to her feet. She's trying very hard to regain her composure; I'm trying not to fall flat on my face. She blesses herself, obviously appealing for help, or is it courage? I appeal for help too. This vertigo is one of the reasons that I truly _hate _transitioning.

x

She obviously doesn't want to touch me. I wait, hand extended, give her time, need it myself. If she'd take the offer now she'll pull me down on top of her but I'll have to risk it. In the end it's less a matter of overcoming fear - that'll come - and more a matter of practicality that makes her grasp my hand. In the ankle-length black cassock she's not going to get up elegantly without my help.

The vertigo is forced away just in time - long practice I'd never wanted - and I get a moment to look her over as she reaches her feet and she lets go as soon as she can. It's been a year since we've seen one another.

We were never close. Our parents were the close ones, our generation never really mingled, and this goes for the families of all the agents - though I always thought Harry was cute. I only ever saw her at parties and the like, we definitely moved in different circles. Her cassock, the silver pentacle that dangles between my breasts, these are more than adequate testament to the distance between us.

With her long red hair and classic Irish complexion, she looks so much like her mother that I can imagine that this is what Siobhan might have looked like when she and Tim started dating. I actually see very little of Tim in Erin, other than her eyes being his lighter green instead of Siobhan's emerald. Craig and Harry take more after him.

In her long black cassock the similarity is only reinforced. The only difference between her and her mother is Erin's lack of a white collar about her throat, a mark that she hasn't been Ordained yet. I try to recall; she's probably in the second year of her studies.

"It's o – it's okay," she breathes, continuing to work to regain her composure. She's still shaking, pretending not to clutch the back of the chair. "I knew you were coming – I just thought you'd arrive … whole."

"I'm sorry." I've never used magic around her, I recall now. First, there'd never been an occasion when it came up and second, it's pretty much private unless I'm working. So she's never had any preparation from me, and her intro was a truly horrifying sight.

She waves me off, color starting to return to her face. She's not shaking as much as she was a few moments ago. We sit down at the table. She pretends it's not a weak-kneed collapse.

"It's – okay." She takes a deep breath, tries to expel fear with the air. It's not that easy but she tries. "Your secretary said you need my help?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

The question slaps me. I've been dealing with this for three days but Tina, when she set up for my arrival, had quite properly not mentioned that M.J. is dead.

x

When Erin brings her attention from prayers for April's soul back to her life and death, she fixes me with determined eyes moist with tears. "What do you need to know?"

"When did M.J. - I mean April - contact you?" I have to get out of the habit of using her nickname; it's very unprofessional. No matter we were friends and Wiccan sisters; this is an Investigation, I'm a professional and there's no excuse for sloppy thinking.

"We've always kept in touch. We've been friends since College, even though ,,," she has to stop. "I'm sorry, I haven't seen April since I moved north, but we...."

I certainly don't need her to elaborate. April hadn't joined the Coven until a little more than a year ago, almost certainly after Erin had come here. "And when she decided to follow the Right Hand Path and learn witchcraft?"

She shrugs, trying for Gallic distance and quite failing. As always, it's in the eyes. "Well, naturally I thought she was making a mistake. I mean, what am I supposed to think?" she waves her hand demonstratively over her cassock. "Granted she's Roman, I'm Episcopalian, but we're both Catholic. I didn't push hard, you can't push too hard, but I wanted her to know I was still with her. We're friends – were friends – _are_ friends, and if she wanted to talk about it I was always here." She stops for several moments.

She's over the initial shock, grief will take far longer.

x

"Finally, about three months ago, she did. She wrote that she was confused. She didn't say anything about leaving that life, not at first, but she was very confused. Conflicted. She didn't know where she fit in; who or what she should believe in."

"When did this change?"

"It didn't _actually_ change, not so I could give you a date. Such decisions aren't made like that, it's much more gradual." Erin seems to look momentarily into the past, then back again to today. "Her letters spoke of greater and greater confusion. She found both sides to be real, or so she said, but after a time she couldn't keep up both sides at once."

"What position did you take? On the reality that is?"

She considers her answer for quite a few seconds. I think she's either trying for an air of objectivity or trying not to offend me. She needn't do the one or worry over the other.

"I talked with quite a few of the priests here, sought their guidance. I wasn't sure I was the one to talk to, the one to be giving advice on her soul. I'm too ... I don't have enough experience. The only reason she chose me to confide in is because we've been friends since GW. I guess she thought that as a Seminarian I'd have an insight. Also, I was so far away I guess she figured her conflicts wouldn't get back to anyone."

"Did they?"

"She asked me to keep our letters secret, and I respected that. After getting the initial advice about consulting with her at all, I never shared anything she told me."

"And what advice did you give her?"

x

For a long moment she's silent. "Su Lin, you can't come to a priest or a priest-in-training and expect us to advise in favor of what our Lord specifically spoke against. I tried to present what I thought was a fair and balanced view, but when I advised her to pray for guidance I didn't have in mind your gods. I didn't come out and say _specifically_ that she should pray to God, I didn't want to force her away, but God was the one I had in mind."

"Okay, I can certainly respect that. Did she ever indicate she was coming to a decision one way or another?"

She shakes her head and there's sadness in the motion. Maybe 'what might have been' if they'd had the time? "No. I never got the sense that she'd made up her mind."

x

"The other investigators and I read your letters. Did you keep hers?"

"No. Sorry. I felt they were private. I never imagined..." She has to stop. For a long moment I watch the battle on her face before she covers it with her hands. Her shaking shoulders are the only things she can't hide. I sit quietly until finally she rubs her face, dries her eyes. "Why?" Her voice is muffled; it takes a long moment to regain her words and try again but still grief hushes her. "Why was she killed?"

"I wish I knew," I confess.

"She said she wasn't afraid to make a decision; that she was allowed to quit."

I hear her desperation and can read her thoughts so easily on her face. Was she in some way responsible for what happened?

x

"We welcome new sisters, but we don't force anyone to stay. She was free to go, we'd welcome her back if she chose to come back but to leave is her choice."

Again Erin hides her expressive face behind her hands. I wait, there's nothing else I can do. "That's a relief," she whispers when she can lower her hands. There's no relief in her tone. She said the words; there is no truth to them. "I thought ...."

"No." 'No, you didn't get our friend killed.' I wish I could say it, but I can't. The words are trapped in my own tight throat.

She has to stop again, hands pressed to her mouth. She's trying to contain herself as much as her mother would. I wonder if it's religious training, or 'like mother, like daughter'. Considering my relationship with _my _mother, it's a tough call.

Concentrate on business, on the case, before we fall into each other's arms, bawling. "Do you know if anyone else knew she was thinking of leaving?"

"I don't know," she admits, then gets up quickly. "Excuse me!" She rushes past me, shuts herself inside the bathroom. A broken sob is quickly quieted. I imagine her holding a thick towel to muffle the sound.

I sit there, too aware that I'm being monitored, trying not to give in to my own grief. I don't want to now, though Erin's muffled sobs bring my own close.

It's nearly five minutes before the knob turns behind me, I hear the door open but I don't turn around. I wait, not looking, until Erin sits down before me and I pretend not to see her exhaustion in how her body trembles as she settles into the chair. "I'm sorry."

I reach out to her hand but she shakes her head, doesn't want to give in. I've been using the investigation to keep the tears in. If we touch the floodgates will shatter. She's barely composed; I can see the emotion still so close to the surface. I can tell she's deeply affected not only by what happened to April but by her part in it. I think she's second-guessing herself too. Is anything they said in any way responsible for April's murder? Did she miss some clue that could have foretold this?

I wish I could help, but I've been plagued by the same doubts and haven't even found my own answers. How can I offer Erin hers?

"She never mentioned it" she tells me, answering the long-ago question as though she'd never been interrupted. "She did say she was seeing someone and didn't think he'd like her lifestyle."

This is the first real news and I have to check myself to keep from pouncing on it. "Did she say who this was?"

"No, she never did. I got the impression he was significant to her, that his opinion - his view - meant a lot to her, but she never did tell me even his name."

"I haven't been able to find out who she's seeing." This is as much for mom, who's monitoring this conversation from the office. I know research will begin right now.

"Did she ever call," I ask, "or was it only by letter?"

She's still trying to hold on to her composure, but she's managing. "We only wrote. She'd said … she said she wanted to keep my letters, to think about what we spoke of. I actually don't have a lot of time to call people; I'm keeping a pretty heavy course schedule. It's easier to spend a few days thinking and then writing."

x

"I notice you're …" I indicate her black cassock. "Is it required during your schooling?"

She shakes her head, chagrinned, but I can see relief as well. We're not talking about April's murder any more. This is a neutral subject. We need a neutral subject.

"Not really, but your Secretary said you were coming on business and indicated it was because I'm here, so I figured I should change." She takes a deep breath, tries to push away emotion. "I thought it better to meet you like this than in tee shirt and jeans."

"I wouldn't have cared." Somehow it would have made us a bit more even, but in one sense we're about as far apart as you can probably get. In fact, we're probably a metaphor for the conflict April was experiencing. "I saw your parents yesterday."

She perks up. This is a good distraction from grief. "How are they?"

"Good. I caught them just before lunch." I tell her of the hardships her father endures with his over-amorous student. It's good to make her laugh. "I told him he should lose the beard."

"I wish he would, it doesn't suit him." She looks past me, longingly I think. "I wish I could see them."

I could offer – no, on second thought I couldn't. I couldn't do that to her even if it were possible. Two active minds in the vortex never work and if Transitioning in on her scared the life out of her, I can't possibly expose her to the thing that gives me daymares.

"How long are you here?" I ask instead.

"Until next June, but then I come under the Assignment. After I'm Ordained, there comes a period of placement. I'll apprentice at some parish for a time, eventually they'll farm me out and try to find a parish for me."

"Hard?"

"It can be," she grants, "but not like the horror stories mom tells me about when she first started. She was one of the ground-breakers. Women priests were still very rare back then. She'd spent her first two years moving all over the country as a Supply Priest, finally wound up at Saint Mary the Virgin and spent 18 years there before she was elected Bishop." Erin smiles wryly. "She says there are times she'd rather have remained Rector than move to the National Cathedral."

x

A moment of reflective silence breaks. "Su Lin, can I ask you something?"

"Sure." She's answered all my questions, I can hardly say 'no' - I think.

"Is there anything you _can't _do?"

I shrug; her point - her need? - is obvious, and I won't iinsult her by pretending ignorance. "I can't fly, not even levitate," I assure her, hiding behind a faux smile. Her question was pretty intense. I've encountered it before and I'm never quite sure how much to reveal. In my experience, less is definitely better.

"That's not what I mean," her protest has quite a bit of emotion to it.

"Then what do you mean?"

She takes a moment to think it over. "I've never really been comfortable around you ever since the subject of Wicca came up between us." I could tell - often. Granted we saw one another very rarely - only at NCIS social gatherings - but in recent years she'd kept a discomforted distance.

"I guess, what I'm trying to ask is - is there anything you _can't_ do? I mean, can you make someone do what you want?"

"In limits," I confess. I see no reason not to tell the truth. We may not be close, but I've never not trusted her. "Some pretty big limits. I can ... I can influence someone to do something, if its minor and he doesn't care. But if someone wants to do something, or doesn't want to, then I'm powerless."

"So if you came upon someone standing on the edge of a roof and who wants to jump..."

"I can knock him on his a- - butt," I remember in time that we're watched and heard, "but I can't make him walk away. I can't do anything that affects free will. I'm not even sure the Gods and Goddesses can, or would."

"Gods or goddesses .... That's something else I just could never get used to."

x

I'm not surprised; in fact I'd be surprised if she could. Sitting there in long black cassock, just a white collar short of Ordination - or is it the other way around? - though I'm not wearing my own formal robes, we are about as far apart as we can get. Or are we? I decide to surprise her.

"I was raised a Christian - and I still am." Her lips part; it worked. "My mother was Roman Catholic before embracing Wicca. She's still Roman Catholic. Dad's Episcopalian. I was raised to not only respect but embrace all three sides of my heritage just as mom does. We've seen too much to discount anything."

"How do you reconcile them? To be a Christian witch...." I can see her struggling to resolve this - but I've lived my life not reconciling it.

"Dad asked mom the same question the day he found out. She said it gives her headaches."

"And you?"

"No headaches. I grew up with both sides; I use my Wiccan powers in accord with both. I'm not sure I'd know how to separate them. That's why the symbol I use is the circled pentagram surrounding a cross." I pull out the charm from under my shirt; it's a twin of the one dad had had made for mom more than a lifetime - mine - ago.

"The more I learn," Erin says ruefully, shaking her head, "the more I have to wonder what I know."

x

But then her manner sobers, there's still something she hasn't said, hasn't asked, and I think I know what it is.

When she finally asks, I'm not disappointed.

"You're far more powerful than April was." I just nod; that wasn't a question. "If you can't stop someone from doing what he wants ... April couldn't stop him from killing her?"

I don't mention I'd go against the sledge hammer, not him. Erin doesn't need to hear that - it won't help the pain. Besides, preventing attack takes focus; not likely when someone's cutting you up or smashing your hands and knees.

"No," I admit, and feel very sad. "No, she couldn't."

Erin inscribes the sign of the Cross, my own motion is different, as I'm sure are the deities we pray to. But I'm sure our prayers are very much alike.

x

I probably stay longer than I should; but it's pretty rare to be able to spend time with someone nearly my own age with whom I have so much, and so little, in common. But I've learned all I can here – at least about the case. I do, however, arrange that if Erin learns or recalls anything more she should call me. Since they were communicating by snail-mail, no computer in sight here, I don't give up hope that there might still be a message coming north.

Erin extracts the same promise from me and it's obvious she'll get far more intel than I will, but I assure her I'll let her know what I can when I can. Finally it's time to leave. I stand up, prepare the spell in my mind.

"Could you do me one favor?" she appeals quickly.

"Sure."

"Use the door?"

xxx

I have no problem Transitioning from the vacant hall. At least I hope it's vacant, I don't hear any shrieks as I leave. This time I don't make myself look at the mind-blasting maelstrom of the extra-dimensional vortex. To see bursts of eldritch energy hurtling at me at a thousand miles an hour is a once-a-day experience, thank you very much. I don't open my eyes until I feel myself step through the mirror.

"About time you came back," mom chides, not quite angry. "I thought you two were going to go out for coffee."

"Sorry, I –" is as far as I get before the Transition vertigo slams me and I stagger to my left, bang my hip on the desk, almost fall over it. I snatch blindly at the barrier. "Damn _fuck_!" I cling to the wood until the room stops gyrating. It takes forever, but I'm too dizzy even to aim for my chair. I'd have sat down immediately if I hadn't been distracted for that second. "I _hate_ Transitioning!"

"Almost as much as I hate your mouth lately."

"_Oh just be_ –!" I shut myself up just in time. When I look up, I'm half surprised she doesn't have her hand up for a good whack to the back of my head. I guess 'never hit a woman when she's down' applies here. Just lucky, I guess. "I'm sorry, it's just that it's so damned aggravating. Someday I'm going to walk into a firefight and I'll be too busy staggering like a drunkard to do anything about it."

"I know, but it's the Law of Balance."

"'For every advantage, there's a disadvantage, for every gain there's a price'."

"Exactly." She gives me a moment for the planet to stop gyrating. "But was this price worth it?"

"I think so, yes."

x

"What did you learn that you couldn't have with a visiphone?"

I work my way into my chair, feeling lucky to plop my ass onto it rather than the floor. I refrain from pointing out this was her idea. I know she doesn't mean the visiphone would be preferable. "The truth." I look up at her, finally manage to focus without straining. "Erin believed every word she said, even to not knowing about the boyfriend."

"Yes, I got that too. Interesting, isn't it; College chums who don't discuss boyfriends?"

"I guess if they were face-to-face instead of hundreds of miles apart, communicating by _letter_ of all things...."

It does tell me something. E-mails are recorded at both ends, can be tapped anywhere in cyberspace if you know how, but there's only one letter. Sometimes antique low tech is the best way to keep a secret – unless you keep the letter.

"Begs the question: who else was she communicating with?" mom asks rhetorically, hiking half her butt onto the edge of my desk. Does she know how much that annoys me? Would she not do it if I asked? I decide not to find out. "Who is the mysterious friend who 'wouldn't approve' of her lifestyle?"

"Didn't you find out who it is?" I ask. Okay, that was a snipe, but transition vertigo makes me grouchy.

She laughs, shakes her head. "It's been only a half hour since I set Cathy to work on it. What do you think I am, a magician?"


	11. Micro Tail

Chapter Eleven

Micro Tail

I push aside the cover of my computer and call up my notes on this case, which has the benefit of getting mom off the edge of my desk. Thank the Goddess the vertigo fades quickly, though I'd as soon not have it at all. Mom's quiet as I type and try to put my thoughts in order. It helps to write the notes out; it makes me think as well as allows me to put everything into a permanent record that I can refer to when things start to make sense. But when I'm done, I'm still no closer to an answer.

Mom, standing before my desk, can probably read it on my face.

Probably?

"All right," she directs, "let's take it from the top."

"M.J. went with someone to Shenandoah, to the top of that knoll," I begin. The top is easy; it's the middle that's hell.

"That someone wore size 12 EE running shoes," she continues, "apparently brand new since Paul and his team couldn't find any distinctive wear pattern to the tread."

"That person, male or female," I pick it up, "is powerful enough to completely mask him- or herself from us. It's someone April knows and trusts well enough to undress with. She was Skyclad on that knoll, but we found no evidence that a ritual had been performed."

"She'd had sex with someone about eight to twelve hours before she died, give or take a four hour range," she reminds me, "but that doesn't say they're the _same _person and still doesn't rule out that the murderer is a woman."

"Whoever it was," I reply, admitting the sex thing might have no connection at all with the murder - damn it, "smothered her several times, probably to gain time to drive five clamps into the stone -" I hold up my hand to cut her interruption. "Whoever did it was powerful enough to screen him- or herself from us. What about Kendra Little? Do you think she could read what we can't?"

"I won't chance that, not until she proves she's innocent."

"_Mom_!" I hadn't meant her as a suspect, but as an aid. "I've known Kendra my whole life, you a lot longer. She's been High Priestess of Rising Star for thirty five years!"

"And that matters?"

x

I'm about to protest - again, but she's right. Friendship, even trust, are fine as they go, but if there's one lesson uncle LeeJay taught both of us, it's this: In an investigation you can focus only on the facts and where they lead.

"Guilty until proven innocent," she reminds me, mirroring my own thought. "It's not the American way, but it's _my_ way when I'm running an investigation. Gibbs taught me that thirty years ago and I've never found a reason to give it up. I haven't found anyone on this case who I'm ready to say _didn't _do it."

"Well, what about Kendra and Seamus?"

"What about them?"

"I promised to keep them in the loop."

"I didn't. Come here."

She wants me to lean forward, I know why. She never picked up uncle LeeJay's method of using back-of-the-head wake up calls with her team, but for some reason I've never been immune. "No."

"It just goes on your account."

"I'm serious; if we're not going to trust anybody, how will we get anywhere? I think it's time we start to eliminate suspects. Let's start with Kendra and Seamus."

"All right, let's. Method: each of them has tremendous power. Is it enough to hide from us?"

"For over an hour? Possible, but it's one he – one heck of a drain. Besides, I can think of others from other Covens who have just as much power."

"Who?"

"Bart Selva comes to mind. He's a very powerful Adept. I'm not saying he cou–"

"For now I'm saying everyone could. Male or female, they're cleared only when we have proof they couldn't do it."

"All right, then let's see who couldn't do it." I turn my attention back to the inlayed keys of the computer and start a list. In a few minutes we have forty names, not just those within Rising Star, of witches who are simply not qualified to commit this murder and hide him- or herself from both of us. It feels good to make some progress, even if it is negative.

Then comes the less pleasant list, that of those we agree have the sheer power to kill and possibly obscure that fact from us. It's a short but a really unpleasant list; not only are the people on it very powerful but a lot of them are good friends.

x

"All right; Opportunity," she says when we're ready to move on. "Kendra and Seamus have witnesses that put them at their jobs yesterday, though I haven't spoken to them yet so alibis aren't confirmed."

"What about the people at Quantico?"

She shakes her head. "I checked the official registries even before I spoke with any of them. Not one of those people could do a simple disappearing quarter slight-of-hand. This isn't the old days."

x

The old days. That's when people just registered by checking off on a list Catholic, Protestant, Wicca, Baptist, so on. Ever since 2013 and Roe vs. Wade - and I stillwish they hadn't called it that - witches of real power in the Service are required to register.

Those were the bad old days I'm grateful that I was an infant during, but I know all the stories. It's not just history, its family history. The case that touched off the powder keg was Clarence Roe vs. Harrison Wade vs. the entire Selective Services. It proved witches of power really exist, brought us into the public eye and for some time almost made us – them rather, I was too young and still unknown – the secret weapon in what could have become World War Three.

x

Mom was one of thousands who could have been forcibly conscripted into the Marines. She'd've gone from policewoman to soldier but Congress, in a rare example of rational political thinking, smashed the military's hopes of creating the super force.

Freedom of expression and personal development had allowed the advent of truly powerful witches. The lack of those same freedoms choked development in the societies of our enemies. To my knowledge no totalitarian society has ever produced truly powerful witches. That distinction had been the linchpin in a truly despicable plot.

The 'Pentacle Plan', the Pentagon's tongue-in-cheek euphemism for creating a race of super-soldiers, would have touched off the very war they'd sought to avoid. What do you suppose our non-magical enemies, and our occasional allies come to that, would have done when it came out we were developing human weapons against which there is no defense?

Right.

From 2013 to 2019 the political and legal battles waged in every arena you can name. The result is that witches are as out of the closet as you can get. Screw 'don't ask, don't tell'; in the past decade plus you can practice and live in peace but you damn well better tell.

One result of that long shakeup of society and politics and the arms race is that it allows me, and others, to make an honest living. It opened up commercial ventures the likes of which you couldn't even imagine at the turn of the millennium. The downside is that we're catalogued, classified, indexed. My file, which I'll never see, is probably a hundred pages thick.

Or so I flatter myself. It's probably a couple hundred K's of data on a server in the sub-basement of the Hoover building.

Like I said, I'll never see it, which is one reason we're here trying to compile our own ad hoc list of people powerful enough to, as Abby Dwyer was fond of saying, 'commit murder and leave no forensic evidence'.

We haven't even gotten into trying to figure who's perverted enough.

x

"That leaves the 64 billion dollar question," I tell mom, "motive. Why would someone kill M.J. - I mean _April_? That's the one that's gone around and around in my brain for three days. By all accounts she's an inoffensive, bi-sexual Neo in a middle level job. The Coveners I spoke to last evening all say the same thing: not one of them has anything against her and none of them can think of why some would do her in like that." Mom doesn't answer.

"There's more than sadism in how she was killed," I continue unopposed, "there's hatred. It takes hatred to clamp someone down and use a sledgehammer on her, then rip her heart in two. Who hates April enough to do that who April trusts enough to go into the woods with alone?"

x

"When you contacted her, she was very angry," mom points out, the mistress of understatement. I'd tried a séance and nearly got my metaphysical ass kicked.

"Angry? She scared the hell out of me. If she had the talents of a poltergeist or was a more powerful witch I could've been hurt. A Circle of Protection doesn't protect against having a bookcase smashed over your head."

"Do you really think she'd have done that?"

I consider the point as dispassionately as I can, finally have to admit that: "I think if she were more powerful in life she would've tried. She was plenty pissed about being dead."

"You're right."

"I am?" I like being right, but about what?

"It's not a good idea to try again. Convenient as it is, it wouldn't do much to get a name if there's no evidence to be had, and in my career I've been beaten up often enough, thank you very much."

x

The intercom to my right beeps. "Yes, Tina?"

"You have a call from George Washington University."

"Great! I was hoping he'd get back to me, thank you, Teen!" I glance up to mom. "I asked uncle Tim to try to get satellite imagery of Shenandoah." I push the white button beside the inlaid computer screen, my notes vanish. "Hi, unc –!"

"_What_, I have to hear from _McGee_ that you come to GW and don't even _visit_?" Dr. Abby Dwyer demands.

x

She glares at me through the glasses she now must wear full time. The years have been kind to her but fine grey hairs visibly run through the black. A small silver skull and crossbones pin decorates the collar of her white blouse, a discreet echo of a far more flamboyant day.

"I'm sorry, aunt Abby, I tried but I'm deep in the middle of a case."

She smiles. "That's all right, hon, I was grading papers while you were here." Mom comes around beside me, steps into the field of the camera. "_Hi Michelle_!"

"Hi, Abby, long time no see."

"Just what I told your neglectful daughter there."

"She is pretty hopeless."

"Tell me about it. I don't know what this younger generation is coming to."

"_Excuse me_, I won't be bantered about on my own computer."

"Hush and let the adults talk." She smiles broadly as my mouth falls open. I let it stay there. "Tim told me about your case and between us we dug up a JayPeg from a geosynchronous satellite. Unfortunately it's an old sat from the 90's so the resolution's pretty crappy. I cleaned it up but it's still not much. I hope it'll help."

"Thanks, Abs," mom says, firmly in command of my desk, "let's see it."

x

The image changes to a downward angle of the top of the knoll, more rocky than fertile. I'd say we're seeing it from about 100 feet away if I didn't know the scale better. April is spread-eagle, naked and clamped to the rock, her body tries to arch in pain. She's screaming, a sledgehammer is smashing her left knee.

"That's the best image we could find," Abby's voice comes through the speaker. Her tone is apologetic and not because of the violence. It's because the person doing the pounding with the sledge is bent slightly and all we can see is a blue jacket and dark blue pants. The head is obscured by a cap and he is bent well away from the camera hundreds of miles above.

"Can you clean up the image some more? Magnify it further?"

"That _is_ the best magnification. One more level and you'll get pixels." The image changes to a wide angle, so wide it takes me a few seconds to locate the knoll. The span must be two miles across; April and her murderer aren't visible.

"Wait!" mom directs, "can you bring it back up and enhance the left of the knoll? There should be a car on that road."

It only takes a few seconds for the car to grow upon the screen until it's the same perspective as the two on the hill. It's our favorite blue Chevrolet Achisma. "Can you get a license?"

x

The image clicks back to Abby's face. "Sorry, friends, you're at the limit. We don't have the software I used to have in my lab. What you see is what you've got. I'll email each of you. You can try and ask Harris to work on it a bit more -"

"Wasn't going to ask."

"Right on, 'Gibbs'! But the pixilation is going to wash out anything you really need. If it were the Asimov, provided I could get it turned around without NASA going berserk, I could give you the lint in his hat. This crate isn't even the old Hubble."

"Thanks, Abby. I knew we could count on you."

"Thank Tim; he's the one who found it. I just did the clean-up."

"Thanks to both of you," I say. I don't care that it's not perfect, it's more than we had.

"Have to run; time to face the galloping hoards. Give Tony my breast."

She disappears and mom and I are left staring at each other, not daring to ask if we'd actually heard her right.

Knowing Abby, we did.

x

"Erin said M.J. - _April _- hadn't made up her mind about which she chose, Wicca or Christianity." I say, trying to push out the unwanted image Abby'd raised. Mom had never actually made that choice either; she's embraced both, therefore so have I. Is it a pity April hadn't? "Maybe she solicited someone else?"

"Yet one more thing. I have Bill backgrounding her, Ken working on her enemies if any and Cathy on the boyfriend while doing M.O.s."

"I'll check in with Seamus, see if she ever mentioned to him or Kendra about second thoughts." I don't like the look she gives me. "What?"

"You're sweet on him, aren't you?"

"What?"

"It's in your voice, when you said his name."

x

I'm not going to answer that. He's attractive, I admit, and the right age _and_ my choices of people I can let my hair down around is way limited, but I am _not _going to admit how I've thought about him lately!

"So, where do we go from here?" I ask, as much as to distract her. I don't mind taking direction, she's the only person I'll let direct my case, and in fact this one is _our_ case.

"To our mysterious tail with the micromeshed windows," she decides.

"He'd certainly like to know what we know."

"He'll be down there waiting for one of us to leave."

"I think it's about time to find out which one of us he's more interested in."

"Well, I have to get back to NCIS, so we'll go with the original plan."

"I'm going to have to come in too, but I'll follow in my own car. I need to know what more dad and Sammy found."

"Don't you have enough?" she asks with a wry smile.

xx

The trap is so simple it's almost too simple; I have the feeling even before we start that something really ought to go wrong. Within minutes I'm sitting in my car at the base of the ramp, mom's out front nonchalantly hailing a cab. My visiphone is attached to the dashboard, the screen blank. She'll start out keeping in touch by voice to avoid giving the plot away on the street.

I hear her get into the cab, the street noise vanishes as the door is sealed. She gives instructions for the Navy Yard on the bank of the Anacostia and the motor sound changes. She says nothing for twenty seconds, then: //Tail up.//

"On your six," I assure her, start up the ramp and turn right. Traffic is light, I turn right again onto an even less crowded road. Three blocks ahead is the blue Achisma. "Bogie in sight, one block behind you."

//I have you.// I know she won't give anything away by looking back behind her. With her see-through compact mirror, she doesn't have to. //Stay at maximum distance. We're just out for an afternoon drive, the three of us.//

"Eggs, mom, I've done this before."

//I remember your first time; you were so focused on the target you ran into Mangle's bumper.//

"I've gotten better since then."

//I know you have.//

x

As much as we might banter to control the tension, this is deadly serious. Neither of us forgets for a second we have a murderer between us, the slightest mistake can–.

"Missed the light," I tell her as traffic cuts across my path. I'm at the box and falling behind by the second.

//No problem, we're on course, just catch up when you can.//

I try very hard not to seethe. "If he's going to make a move to attack your cab, it'll be now."

//Darling, please, you're scaring the nice driver.// Her tone sounds so casual, the sharpness of the reprimand only comes through if you know her. I do, and resolve to keep my mouth shut.

Thank the Goddess that Washington has shorter than average lights, courtesy of all those politicians who want to get where they're going. "Moving again," I assure her. The Achisma is too many blocks ahead. I accelerate, determined to catch up quickly.

x

The gas pedal jumps away from my foot - the car leaps forward in a screeching cloud of vaporized rubber and I'm slammed into the seat.

//What are you doing?// I can barely hear her over the scream of tires.

"Out of control! Gas on full!" I fight inertia but can't even pull myself up as I rocket up the street. I stand on the brake but the accelerator has first dibs! I yank the emergency brake as I race through the next intersection on shrieking tires, barely manage to dodge cars that seem to stand still and then I see something that really makes my pounding heart try to get out: the next light is already yellow!

Damn it, they let it get out of sequence! The truck ahead of me is stopping – _I can't avoid it_!


	12. Total Eclipse of the Heart

Chapter Twelve

Total Eclipse of the Heart

The gas pedal comes up and my standing on the brake matters again. Tires that screamed protest at turning my car into a horizontal rocket screech as I skid to a stomach wrenching stop half a foot behind the behemoth!

//SU ARE YOU ALL RIGHT TALK TO ME!// I finally realize mom's been yelling all through this. I can barely hear her over my heart or heaving lungs that try to burst out of my chest. I shake so hard I can't reach the phone.

"I'm fine!" I assure her, barely able to talk. I doubt she even hears me. "I'm back in control."

It's my biggest lie all week. I'm shaking like an earthquake and gasping like a beached whale. There's one more problem I don't bother to mention; I'm sure she knows. Though I see the cab come back in the other lane, there's no sign of micromesh.

x

By the time mom's cab arrives and she gets out, dismissing the cab, I'm just a little less of a wreck. It's no fun losing control like that, but it's obvious what micromesh had intended. He might not have wanted me dead, he had me very distracted so he could make his escape.

"How did he know?" I demand when she reaches my window. I'd have to pry my fingers loose from the steering wheel; right now I can't even try. I won't say we blew this one; I don't have to.

"As you say, that's the 64 billion dollar question. You fell almost four blocks back, then caught up to where he turned off that way," she points southwest. "He's long gone. We should get your car to NCIS, see what Paul can find."

I don't say anything stupid, like 'what are they going to find from a spell?' I concentrate on making my cramped fingers let go of the wheel by the time she crosses the front of the car and gets in.

xx

The thunderheads that advance ominously from the west like an implacable army promise a rotten night. Don't let anyone tell you thunderstorms and magic go together, they don't and I hate them. Maybe I'll get lucky and the NWS is wrong this time.

Yeah, right.

When we get to NCIS Paul Harris and his crew's already waiting in the garage. "Do me a favor, just don't take it apart, I need it."

"No promises," but he smiles when he says it.

x

We could head up to Operations, but I want to go to Autopsy first. And no, it's _not _a case of a scared girl wanting her daddy, thank you very much. I do have some more questions about April.

Unfortunately he's not there, but Sammy is.

"Hi Sammy!" I greet her happily. That's the only way you can do anything with Sammy, she has that eternal ecstasy that rubs off on you.

She hugs us both, then shocks me to the core as she looks up into my eyes. "You're in _love_! Who is he?"

"_What_?" I'm the witch, the psychic, at least I thought I was.

"I know that look; I've seen it a million times. Who is he?"

"_No one_!" What is this?

"Bet I know," mom tells her. "It's Seamus Cein."

"Isn't he the ...?"

"Uh huh."

"Sexy?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Good choice?"

"He could be."

All this time I stand here with my mouth open, unable to believe these two mad women.

"_HEY_! Stop talking about me like I'm not here, and I am _not _in love with Seamus Cein! The very idea!"

"Of course you are, honey" mom assures me with maddening certainty. "You can't even say his _name _without your voice and eyes giving you away."

Why do I even try? "All right, this is too much! Yes, I think he's cute, yes I dream about him, but -."

"_Dream _about him?" Sammy would pick up on that.

_Shit_!

"Look, you're both wrong!" Okay, maybe I did dream some wild dreams, maybe I don't mind so much working with him on this case, but that's not for their ears. "I am not interested in Shamus Cein!"

"Who's Seamus Cein?" Dad's voice comes from the doors I hadn't even heard opening. I turn to see him dressed in brown pants and jacket. He's probably back from lunch.

"No one."

"Someone Su Lin's sweet on," Sammy contributes ever so helpfully.

"Really?"

"_NO_!"

"Oh, your High Priest. He okay?"

"Not bad," mom assures him.

"Good, she needs more than work," he says, ignoring my protest, but then he does turn to include me in this conversation. "As long as you're not having sex with him, you're too young for that."

I burst out laughing, I can't help it. "Come on, dad."

"I mean it; you are far too young to be thinking about things like that."

"I haven't been that young in a long time."

"I mean it, young lady. Stay away from him; he's no good for you. And he only has one thing on his mind."

"If she's lucky," Sammy quips, earning a glare from dad.

"How could _you _know what he has on his mind?" I challenge this outrageousness.

"Because that was the only thing your father had on his mind when _he _was that age," mom assures me.

"Hey, I'm not ready to be put out to pasture," he tells her with a significant look.

"More like a stud farm," Sammy says sotto vocé. She just can't resist stoking the fire.

"Thank you, but we're talking about this child here."

"Child!" I scoff.

"Then again, you do have some good judgment about men; maybe I should trust you."

"_Thank _you."

"So," Sammy chimes in, "when _are _you finally going to get laid?"

I think my face just falls off as dad turns to mom. "Yes, and when do I meet my future son-in-law?"

"_DAD_!" That's enough to get everyone laughing uproariously at my expense.

"I'm sorry, hon," mom says when she can stop laughing, "but you know that in this job you have to take your humor where you can get it."

"I guess so, if it were funny." That only serves to incite a new wave of laughter. I figure it's best to give up than to protest any more.

x

I was never happy with how I was thinking of Seamus. I think I'd die of shame if they ever figured or found out. I just hope I don't do it ever again. I've already messed up two sets of bedclothes. To this point, only Sparkle is a witness and I can trust her.

It occurs to me that she's suddenly the only one I can trust not to speculate on my sex life - and that's because she doesn't have to speculate.

Sees all, knows all, I pray not meows all.

x

"What else did you find about April?" I really want to change the subject.

"Hardly much more than I told you earlier," he confesses, obviously willing to have mercy on me now by getting back on track. "She was menstruating, though she had had sex with someone as I think you already know. Why, did you find something I should know?"

"No," I admit, having really hoped he'd made some monumental discovery. Of course, I'd've heard about it if he had, dad's very proactive. I'm not sure her menstrual cycle means anything but I'll file it with everything else. I personally avoid sex during that time but then that's me, and I'm like a camel in the desert now anyway outside my dreams. I'm neither going to judge anyone else nor come to any conclusion.

"About the only thing we've learned," I confess, "is that there might have been a boyfriend, but beyond that I'm clueless. I have no idea who he could be, so I can't even guess if this supposed boyfriend did or didn't kill her."

"Why would you think he had?"

"We heard he might not have been happy with her lifestyle, but which _one _is still up for grabs. I guess ... I guess at this point I'm grasping at straws."

xxx

Visiting the bullpen upstairs will, I hope, provide some guidance to a pretty much directionless case. The most progress we've actually made is the existence of an unnamed boyfriend who may be involved and lists of people who could or couldn't have done this. As soon as mom's inside she calls for reports. "Cathy, did you find anything on that supposed boyfriend?"

"Sorry, nothing. If there _is _one I literally cannot find anyone who's seen or heard of him."

"That doesn't make sense, he's not Sam Weston." Cathy gives her a blank look, never a good idea. "The Invisible Man, blonde guy, popular in the ... Forget it. Someone's seen him, dig deeper."

"Yes, boss."

"Bill and I interviewed some of her neighbors," Ken tells her, "so far nothing. No one we spoke to even knew she was dead, most of them barely knew she was alive. Seems she kept to herself most of the time. From what you told us, she was probably more outgoing in that Coven."

"We're on our way out to check with her co-workers at Amiran Advertising," Bill concludes. "Maybe she opened up to somebody."

"I'll come with you," I offer, anxious to get back out into the field. For a moment I spot the same hesitation I'd expected from Cathy. I can only hope she's enlightened them about where we stand, for all the good it might do.

"Sure. Good to have you." It's the most neutral invitation I've ever gotten from Bill, but I'll take it over the confrontation I had with Cathy, not that that could happen here.

It'll happen elsewhere.

"What else have you got?" mom asks, her tone sharp. This is 'Supervisory Special Agent Palmer' talking to her team.

"I've checked her credit card and bank records," Cathy reports crisply. "No activity since she died, which is notable enough."

"The accounts are still active?"

"Yes, boss. Whoever killed her doesn't seem interested in her money, though more likely he - or she - doesn't want to establish a pattern we can trace."

"Do you have her assets totaled up yet?"

"Bank finally released them when Autopsy faxed a copy of the Death Certificate. $3,842 savings, $1,732,41 checking, $38,288.92 in a 401K, insurance that could potentially pay $37,000. The only one I don't have is the Marine Reservist Death Benefit."

"We already know the beneficiary is a brother in Ohio." She turns to Ken. "Any indication that he's traveled east?"

"No. I spoke to him, he's flying out in the morning to make arrangements. She'll be buried in Ohio."

xx

It doesn't take long for the confrontation I've been expecting, it comes as soon as Bill, Ken and I get off the elevator. I head for my car and the Forensic team crawling over it, they don't. "Su Lin?"

I turn back. "Yes, Bill?"

"Cathy told us about your conversation, we just want to know: are you sh-?"

"No, I'm not shitting you, Bill." I try to keep my patience, but I'm aggravated. "I respect that you're on mom's side, I really like your loyalty, but I'm on her side too and I _resent _being made out to be the villain in my own family."

"We're not making you the villain, Su," Ken tries to placate me. He's obviously forgotten what a bad idea that is. "We just needed to know."

"And now you do. Now can we work together?"

"Sure."


	13. Amiran Advertising

Chapter Thirteen

Amiran Advertising

Amiran Advertising is headquartered on the 43rd floor of the Kensington Tower on Indiana Avenue, a building too white and too glassy for my taste. The foyer is three stories tall, which I just consider a waste, and it makes me want to look around for even more waste.

All right, I'm pissed. Paul had declared he wasn't done checking my car so Bill, Ken and I had to ride together. Granted we have a truce, it's still uncomfortable as hell. The dark skies that threaten a whopper of a storm tonight don't help my mood.

When we get to the 43rd floor and the Receptionist at the huge desk at the end of the elevator lobby, I 'm content to let Bill and Ken take the lead while I stand back and observe.

First, it's 4:30 so we have a fairly short time for effective interviews, but I can establish myself and come back in the morning to continue likely leads. Second, they are the Federal Agents, I'm a P.I. This will also help establish our working relationship and assure them that I'm not stepping on toes. Finally, have you ever had to tell a room full of people a friend has been murdered and you need information from them? Believe me, it's no fun and I'm quite content to let them take the stress.

We get to her boss, a woman in her mid-60's with a power suit that probably works very well with clients. Karen Enbrill takes the news pretty well, meaning she's not the kind to fall down in hysterics. That distinction goes later to one of April's co-workers, a young woman who shares a small office with April. Their desks are side by side and Bill and Ken waste no time in turning her over to me. I let my expression display my gratitude.

Anyhow, that's how I wind up in a small conference room that started its life as a closet and doesn't seem to have grown up yet. Heather Rich sits at the table, crying. I take a seat next to her and hand her my handkerchief.

"I'm sorry," Rich eventually says and tries to regain her composure. I'm half tempted to help with a calming spell except that, though not actually illegal, it's unethical. Can't use magic on a witness, certainly not without her knowledge. There's law and then there's ethics.

Ethics are stricter.

x

"Heather - may I call you Heather?" The question always seems silly to me, since I just did, but it's a time-tested way of establishing a rapport.

"Yes," she sniffs, wipes her eyes. I've never actually had anyone say 'no'. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. It's a shock." She nods. "I'm sorry, this is difficult for you, I know, but I _really_ need your help to catch the one who did this."

That's the way to do it. Establish rapport, emphasize the witness' importance in catching the bastard who killed her friend and we can get somewhere.

"You knew April pretty well?" Their desks were side by side, so it's not much of a reach.

"The best." She wipes more tears from her eyes. I'll be able to wring out the cloth. "We spent all our time here together, bounced ideas off each other, had lunch together, we'd go out evenings after work."

"For drinks?"

"I would, she didn't drink but she liked to go to bars with me. I think she liked the guys trying to pick her up."

"Anybody manage it?"

"No. She enjoyed the hunt, but we usually left alone. She was seeing someone and he wouldn't have liked it."

I try to keep my voice casual. "Do you know who she was seeing?"

"Sure, it was ..." She stops, a look of consternation on her face. "It was –." She grows more concerned. "Why can't I remember his name? I _know_ his name! We talk about him all the time." She looks more than confused, she's scared. "Why can't I remember?"

"Have you ever met him?"

"Yes, we used to meet for drinks, he'd pick her up, he's...."

I feel this is a waste of breath. "Can you describe him?"

"Yes, he's –. That is, he has –." She's growing even more distressed. "What's _wrong_ with me? Why can't I _remember_?"

The answer's damned obvious. She's met Mr. Micromesh and he's obscured her as well as he did his car.

x

"Heather. Heather? It's all right. I'd like to ask you to come with us to the Navy Yard, to NCIS Headquarters. I'd like you to speak to a sketch artist. Maybe if you work with her you'll be able to tell us what he looks like." I figure – to myself – that I'd have better luck on the Irish Sweepstakes, but I have to try something and being proactive will stave off a panic attack.

"But _why _can't I remember? I can _see_ him, I just can't …"

"You just can't tell me?"

She shakes her head, scared, confused.

It's no more than I expect, and there's not a damned thing I can do about it. It's not like it's possible to reach in and grab her memories, nor can I read her mind. That's pure Science Fiction. Without knowing what he did, I can't begin to try to reverse it. It's akin to trying to give an antidote without knowing the poison; at best ineffective, at worst – dangerous.

Right now I work just to keep her calm and ready for when Bill and Ken are done with their own interviews. I hope it'll be soon.

xxx

It isn't soon enough for my new companion's nerves, but eventually it's the clock on the wall that decides matters. Without a valid reason to hold anyone past quitting time, they have to depend upon volunteers willing to stay late to help in a murder investigation, and guess how many of those there are.

I found the only one.

We don't always recognize, or even see, the hand of the Goddess when she works, but it's good to know she's always there, working.

xxx

Heather Rich stays apprehensive all the way to NCIS as I ride with her in her car. It can't be easy, going through what she is. I try to emphasize that I applaud her courage for doing it. She tells me she just wants to help nail April's killer, and how pissed she is at being manipulated.

When we escort her to the basement I introduce her to Sonja Kanavitov, whose grandmotherly manner normally puts the most apprehensive witness at ease in minutes. She has the perfect soft-boiled manner and her art has actually won international awards. I've known loads of sketchers, Sonja is an artist.

We set them up in Interrogation One, nothing more than a table, two chairs, a visiscreen and a mirror. Said mirror allows Bill, Ken and I to watch from Observation One next door.

I'm glad neither Bill nor Ken have brought up what I consider the real irony of this: the detectives had chosen to foist the crying woman off on me and the crying woman provides the solid clue. Here's Su Lin's Rule Three: Look for the emotional content.

We stand in the dark and hope for enlightenment. One thing I particularly want enlightenment about with the unnamed boyfriend is if he'd object to her Wiccan lifestyle or her Christian.

We watch in silence, listen to the intermittent clarifications: a bit wider, a little narrower, slightly darker, a bit larger. During this interval mom and Cathy join us and after a quick recap the five of us wait with strained patience. I'm particularly interested that the more satisfied Heather grows, the more dissatisfied Sonja becomes. Finally; "That's it. That's him."

Sonja brings the pad to the portal, holds it for all of us to see. We turn to Ken Smally.

"I'd tell you you have the right to remain silent," Bill says, "but I'm dying to hear your explanation for this."

As Sonja returns to the table, it's mom who has the answer. "I was afraid this would happen. You're the last one she saw?" he nods. "The spell she's under imprinted you onto her memory."

"I don't know," Bill insists, "I still want to know where you were the other day."

"Doing _your _work."

x

I'm in no mood for this. Its late, I'm tired and just want to get home. Bill will escort Heather back to her car. We don't want her to see Ken, no need to go into why April's supposed boyfriend is working the case.

Me, I just want to cuddle up with Sparkle and drown my sorrows in some hot cocoa.


	14. Bitch in Heat

Chapter Fourteen

Bitch in Heat

When I'm in my car, I glance up at the dark sky, knowing we're gonna get clobbered by the mother of all thunderstorms tonight and my visiphone chimes. I restrain a sigh, tug it out of my pocket and check the screen. 'Seamus Cein'.

This time I do sigh, a mixture of frustration and fatigue. It doesn't make me feel a bit better. But I did promise to keep our High Priest in the loop, and he _has_ been good about keeping out from under foot and letting me do my work. But he is Second-in-Command of Rising Star and it wouldn't be fair not to give him a report before Kendra calls for _his _report.

When I turn on the screen the sight of his face does something terrible to my insides, something that makes me have to stifle a gasp. I hadn't seen him last night, I'd _dreamed _him and the reality is twice as intense.

Damn Sammy and my parents; they were too close to the truth. If this is a hormone problem of some kind I'm gonna ask Sammy to give me a shot to switch my libido _off_!

"Seamus, what can I do for you?" I keep my tone as professional as I can, try to keep my feelings out of it. I swear he has an answer and it's nothing I want to hear. It's already occurred to me - several times. "It's been a long day, I'm -."

"Come on over. I won't keep you long and it's on your way. I don't want to do this over a phone."

"Do what?" I swear if he comes back with a smart answer I'll ....

"Find out how much you know."

I could give him the short answer 'nothing', but he doesn't deserve that. Sorry Sparkle, have to put the cocoa on hold. "Ten minutes is all I'm giving, I'll be right over."

"See you in ten."

That wasn't what I'd meant.

xxx

It's considerably longer than the ten minutes he'd expected, not even a witch can make it across town in rush hour, not without a broom and my flying privileges are – oh, forget it! I've already covered that nonsense and it only proves I really am tired. I knock on his door, in no mood for a social call, or even business, and it doesn't help when I recall that I've been doing this whole damn thing on 'spec'.

When the door opens my heart almost misses a beat - I can't forget how good he looks. I've got to finish and get out of here before I say - or _do_ - something stupid. "I'm not staying."

"I've already fixed you a nice dinner."

"You what?"

"It occurred to me you might not have eaten."

"So you what, prepared a candle-lit dinner?"

"Hardly candlelight," he answers with a disarming but too confident smile, "just fluorescents. But you sounded a little stressed and I thought we'd be a little more comfortable conversing over dinner."

Damn men anyway; his self-confidence is only more aggravating because he's right. I can smell the savory aromas from here and they do to my stomach what his presence is doing to more intimate parts.

If I'm not careful there are going to be all sorts of meals eaten here tonight.

I mentally slap myself. It doesn't help.

x

"Look, I'm sorry; you went to a lot of extra unnecessary work, but I really can't stay." I've already stayed in his doorway for too long telling him I can't stay. If this keeps up, I'll be spending the night.

Damn, did I really even think that?

"At least come in, sit down, taste it and we can chat, tell each other what we know."

It's reasonable and the more I stand here trying to think of excuses the more_ un_reasonable I feel. That's why a minute later, jacket in his closet, I'm seated at his table.

It actually is a delicious dinner and the conversation, on the whole, isn't bad either. We don't really discuss April much yet, mostly because murder and meal don't mix. Sorry M.J.

We do cover things over dessert - that's how little I have that I can share. It's soon over and I stand up, telegraphing the fact that I really want to get going. Sparkle's going to be furious at another late night–

How I wind up with his arms around me and his warm lips pressed to mine catches me so off guard that for a moment I don't know what to think. I don't have the chance to protest - or even be mad - he's _kissing _me and it's like my brain shuts off.

I should push him - I should _shove _him - I should lean back in his strong warm arms and slap his handsome face!

But I don't. And as the kiss goes on without any agreement from my body to stop this I start to think it's not half bad. I mean he's sexy, he's hot, he's in my _dreams_ .... When my brain starts to catch up with my body a minute or so later I'm kissing him more fervently than he is me!

His hands are on me, touching - I'm not stopping him, I'm too busy pulling his clothes, reaching for - - -

xx

When I can think again he's gotten off - literally - and I'm trying to catch my breath. "Oh - my - _Goddess_!" I pant, writhing on the bed. I'm not satisfied, no matter how many times I've - "Please! Don't stop yet!"

I'll beg, plead, I don't have to do much. He comes back, moving down the bed, I open for him and his mouth - - - !

Outside the window, flashes and blasts of thunder only give a background music and I can't stop screaming!

xx

I think I fainted because when I wake up I'm alone. I stretch, feeling languid and really, really _good_.

I can't tell you how good, especially after so long. It's been months since I've been with anyone and I hadn't realized how much tension I've been storing up. This is really better than the dreams; really better.

I run my hands over my bare body, remembering his hands, thinking I should get up and have a shower but not wanting to move.

I think back to that first night in the car, wanting to relive every minute of this week that I've spent with Seamus. I don't begrudge him not being here - he probably is in the shower but I can probably coax him back to this warm bed....

I must have dozed off, hardly usual for me after something like this but while I'm still in the room I'm not alone. April is with me, standing beside the bed and I know I'm dreaming – I don't see ghosts.

She's as solid as I am, my first real clue that I've left the mundane world behind. The second is that she's as naked as I am, but stitches run from her shoulders to meet just above and between her breasts, there's a long line of stitches that run well past her stomach to her pubes. Her hands and knees are as livid as when I saw her last, but thank the Goddess her face is undamaged!

But dream, vision or whatever, I know I don't have a lot of time so I don't waste it on stupid questions. "April, who killed you?"

"Darkcraft obscures all," she says in an ethereal voice I can do without. "Broken hearted, find the dark bone."

She's gone, just like that I'm alone in the room and not quite sure what I saw. Am I dreaming? Am I awake? I sit up aand the coolness of the room and wet mattress make me decide.

I'm awake and I've just seen my first ghost.

x

But what does it mean? What does she mean if she really was here? People who have seen ghosts have told me they're not always literal. I thought that if I ever did see a spirit of a dead person I'd have been scared despite my lifestyle. I realize now I didn't have _time_ to be scared.

But what does it _mean_?

'Darkcraft obscures all.' That one's a no-brainer, I've been dealing with it for days. 'Broken hearted' might refer to April's heart, torn in two by forces no decent Witch would use, or it could be sadness or disappointment. I should at least be grateful she wasn't as angry as the last time I encountered her. 'Find the dark bone.' What dark bone?

And why did she come to me here? Now? Is the clue here? Broken hearted? Hearted? Heart? Her heart was torn in half within her chest, but dad and Sammy said nothing in particular about bones.

I sit still, trying to think, to push aside everything except bones and hearts. What about her heart?

In my head I'm back in Autopsy, dad's telling me about her heart. But there was another conversation about her heart, I had it with Seamus, in the car that first night. What was it we said?

x

"Did she do anything wrong?" he'd asked as we'd traveled back to his home.

"What?" His question had come out of the blue. Or had it? I'm still not sure. I try just to watch the memory play out, not impose my thoughts or interpretations on it.

"I was thinking about what you said earlier; 'why would someone kill April'?" he'd said, the images playing with crystal clarity. "Whoever did it didn't shoot her, didn't stab her, didn't do a thousand things. He smashed her hands and knees, cut off her lips and tore her heart in half. Someone had to hate her pretty badly or want to implicate Rising Star by using a perversion of our 'penalties'–"

x

Wait! Is _that _how it'd happened? That's how I remember it, but it's wrong. Something's wrong, very wrong. What?

When I'd told him and Kendra earlier that evening about how April'd died, I'd told them about the sledgehammer used on her hands and knees, the cutting off of her lips – Kendra'd stopped me, hadn't she? Had she?

Yes! Yes, she did. I never mentioned her heart!

_How did he know_?

x

Fear washes through me, makes me cold. "Oh my _Goddess_!" The realization chills me and the storm raging outside only accents my inner turmoil.

I know! A powerful mage, someone so powerful it has to be – could it be our prodigy High Priest? There aren't that many powerful Adepts in Washington. He doesn't have a car – that I _know_ of – but who's to say you can't lease one and outfit it with micromesh?

Now that the realization has slapped me in the face I _know_! I don't have proof – yet – but I _know_! I don't need the flash through the window or the blast of thunder to accent the realization of my blind stupidity.

Proof! I need proof! I leap from the bed, stand skyclad and wonder where I can find proof! Proof of madness? It has to be here, something has to be here. I tug open the drawer of the night table next to me, start a warp speed search for I'm not sure what, pull open closets, my ears open for his approach, senses full out.

I stop myself. This is idiocy! This is not how you look for clues - like a madwoman. You do it systematically, and _I _do it like a _Witch_!

x

I stop, stand still in the middle of the room and force myself to relax, to think, to become aware of what's about me. If there is any clue to be found, I have to allow myself to find it, not search like a maniac. I relax, drop my shields I keep around me twenty-four-seven and let myself feel. If something is here, no matter what it is, I have to allow myself to feel it.

April. It's useless looking for things that have anything to do with Seamus – everything has his signature on it, but I have to look for April. If anything is here, anything that has any connection with April, I can sense it. I know how to do it, I've been doing it since I was a child; I just have to stop looking for it and _find _it.

Right. To my right. Something in that direction has something to do with April. The closet. Something is there, I _feel_ it.

I step to the closet, remembering to keep my senses open behind me as well; I don't want Seamus walking in while I'm searching his room, but the closer I get the better I feel it. I open the door. Whatever it is draws me up, what I want is on a shelf above my head. I reach up. I can _feel_ it in a box, my hand practically tingles before I touch it. It's a small, long box, wooden, little more than two inches high by two wide, and when I touch it and pull it down my hand is practically vibrating as if from an electric charge. The box is about eleven inches long and I already know before I open it what I'll find. I keep my wand in a similar box.

When I lift the lid I want to scream in despair; the wand isn't wood as a decent witch's should be. It's white and I can tell without having to touch it that it's bone! It's also stained – with blood!

"What are you doing?"

x

I whirl, find him framed in the doorway and don't even have time to curse myself for compounded stupidity! My senses were all out but if I couldn't sense him in the woods, what made me think –?

Our eyes meet and we know. We both know. There's no time for a stupid excuse, he raises his hand and I do too. I drop the accursed box and erect a barrier of eldritch energy before me just in time! The force batters it so hard I'm knocked against the clothes packing the closet. He's powerful, more than I thought. Must end this quickly!

I throw everything I have, my most devastating offense but he shoves his open hand toward me. A lightning flash outside is all I see flare through the room, the thunderclap punctuates the truck that slams –


	15. Sacrificial Lamb

Chapter Fifteen

Sacrificial Lamb

I'm cold, wet and bouncing hard over and over in blackness. I'm also scrunched tightly on my bare side into so small a space that I can't move and I cry out as a particularly hard jolt slams me up and off the metal hood of what has to be a car trunk. Smells I don't want to identify make me gag. I can hear the car engine several feet behind me as another jolt slams me. I also feel like the proverbial truck hit me.

How could I be so _stupid_? In hindsight it's so obvious I deserve one of uncle LeeJay's 'wake up calls'. The rotten shock absorbers in this heap oblige and slam me into the metal again. I've been lusting after this bastard for days for the same reason Heather Rich couldn't tell anyone what he looked like!

The spell must have been cast that first night, even before we got into my car, and it was so subtle I never realized it. I was fooled in my first scan of him and Kendra by the same spell that kept me from sensing him in the woods. I never realized it.

He has to have mastered this deception or he'd never have tried it, and I let the belief that I could depend on my own High Priest catch me. And when he kissed me – that _damned_ kiss – that must have sealed the spell!

And to top it all I'd _fucked _him! Rather he'd fucked _me_ – again! I can practically still feel him inside me and Goddess help me but I was so far gone I never even _thought_ of protection!

Not that it matters a lot now, because he's going to kill me.

x

That damned storm sends another explosion of deafening thunder through the car as I bounce harder still over some pothole. '_Do you have to hit every damned one_?'

Almost in answer, the car stops.

I don't waste thought wondering where I am. I know. I'm back at Ground Zero, the knoll at Shenandoah, and I know what's going to happen now. April, I'm going to be seeing you soon. I hope they don't do a lot of kneeling in the Summerland.

x

A car door opens behind me and the car rocks slightly as he gets out. I ready myself, I'll have only one chance and I have to make it good. But then a moment later another door opens and closes, but without the accompanying shift of the car. He took something out of the back seat and all I can hear is the driving rain on the trunk lid and the occasional explosion of thunder.

I think I know what he's doing – he's preparing the sacrificial ground, laying in a new set of metal wickets. If I'm right, I have a chance. There's something I can do, one chance that might save me.

I close my eyes and, believe it or not – I can't – I manage to relax. I have a chance, one only, and not a whole lot of time. I make myself relax, shove fear aside with determination and concentrate on the spell. I don't know if I can do it, I'm afraid and have to push that aside as well relax. I pray I've been a good witch and that the Goddess will help.

xx

NCIS Headquarters appears around me, real as though I were standing here in the flesh. Okay, in the naked flesh, not much I can do about that when I'm trying to save my life. Mom, Cathy, Bill and Ken are at their desks, I thank the Goddess no one's gone home. Mom generally works late and expects the same. I'll never criticize her about that again so long as I live – assuming that's more than the next five minutes.

But how to get their attention? I'm not really here, not physically and I don't have time for mom to become aware that there's a nude spirit standing in front of her desk. She does look up, however, and right through me.

"Okay, wrap it up, we'll get a fresh start in the morning."

x

No! She stands up, reaches for her coat and in a fit of frustration I slap at her keyboard and knock it halfway across her desk!

"What the hell?"

"What is it?" Ken asks, having heard the noise.

"Did you see that? Something's ...."

I focus my attention on the keyboard. It's a lot like doing it in real life, you think of what you want to do like press down a key but no differently than if you used your finger. You don't force it, you do it. The 'H' key goes down and types its message on the screen. Thank the Goddess she had MS Word open!

I poke at the 'E' key as mom waves everyone over. They gather around the desk. Bill walks right through me and almost sends me out of sync, but I hold on. I can keep this up as long as nothing happens to my body. Any movement, any touch to my body and I'll be instantly snapped back into it, so I have to work fast.

'L'. This is taking too long. 'P'. I have to work faster, no time for finesse. 'ITWZCEIN KNOLL HELP SULI

x

I'm back in my body, the trunk is open, and cold, driving rain is slapping me. I open my eyes in time to see the bastard reach in. I hurtle my most effective –

Pain from hair to toes shatters my concentration! I only know I'm rolling around in the trunk shrieking my lungs out! Then –

x

Cold rain revives me and I wish I could have stayed in oblivion a little longer. I'm lying on my back, arms and legs spread out so wide I can't move. A metal clamp at my throat holds my head in place so I have to stare up into the storm. The cold rain slaps me. Bastard didn't have to do this. The black clouds are split by bolts of lightning that sear my eyes; that leave afterimages on my retina. From my left Seamus Cein comes to tower over me.

Damn inconsiderate bastard, he's wearing a raincoat and he left me naked, not that the sledgehammer in his hand hints at any consideration.

It's hard to see him with the driving rain in my face but at least now I have a target!

"Don't bother," he says smugly, hefting the sledge. "You'll never break through my shield."

"Why?" The clamps driven into the ground keep me still but at least I can talk through the one at my neck. "At _least_ tell me why!"

"Simplest thing in the world. She found out."

"Found out you were a soulless, sadistic bastard?"

"Now that's cruel. No, the nosy twat found out about Sovereign."

The chill I feel rush through my insides has nothing to do with the rain smacking me. "Oh _shit_!" I don't want to believe it, but like an idiot I have to ask. "You're with Sovereign?"

"I _am_ Sovereign."

x

Ever have your world go entirely to shit? This one just did.

When Witches came out of the proverbial closet decades ago some of us didn't. Some of us shouldn't. There are some groups that can't stand the light of day. Most folks don't know about Darkcraft; those that think they do toss around words like 'Satanists' or 'black magic' as if that naïve interpretation even scratched the surface. True Darkcraft leaves such simplistic naïveté in kindergarten!

"How?" We both know why.

"I never did know or care how she found out. I was dating her but never thought she'd be nosy enough to work it out. Maybe she followed me. She was stupid enough to confront me, so I brought her here to deal with her.

"I used the control I occasionally put her under to make her walk. I set everything up to make it look consensual, at least the first part. Truth is it was no such thing." I'm appalled by how he dismisses her; 'twat', 'cunt', as if that's all she was. He looks too damned satisfying. I wish I could -

"Then when you took the case I tried to distract you with an infatuation spell. Never did find out MJ was in the Reserves until you came to Kendra and I. NCIS coming in meant your mother's connection to MJ through Rising Star would bring her in." He grins, just too satisfied. "I didn't expect both of you though. Them I could deal with, you were another matter."

x

I have to keep him talking, but that I can buy an hour. Fortunately, he's willing to play the classic game of laying out the whole plan to me. We're miles from help, he's about to start smashing me. I hope I'm dead before he starts on my insides.

Better not think that. The Goddess has her own ways of granting wishes.

x

"You – fucking – _bastard_!" The blast accompanying a particularly intense flash almost drowns me out, but I think I add enough hatred for accent. The drenching rain is really getting aggravating, but nothing like what that sledge is going to do. "You want to run both Rising Star and Sovereign?"

"I have for years, not even Kendra caught on. It's been really fun, playing you all, having you think I was this good soul and laughing at you all every minute. You're so naïve, so _trusting_. You think everyone is so good you can't even see the wolf at the head of your own pack. Arranging things so clues pointed to Rising Star was to keep anyone from looking too closely into Sovereign, though truth be told no one would have made the connection. No one in Sovereign knows the truth either."

"Why was April's blood on your wand?"

He smiles, I never realized before how twisted it is. "She was menstruating. There was no point in not putting the blood to good use in enhancing the wand's charge after I finished."

x

I'm mad rather than nauseated. I don't even know what I'm saying. I slip a bit into Chinese because English just doesn't carry enough of the imaginative nuances, but I shut up when he hefts the hammer.

"Sorry it has to come to this."

"You're not sorry. I'm surprised you don't rape me while I'm down here." As if I want him to touch me, but a rape could add another fifteen minutes and I could probably drag it out. How long was I out? How far are mom and the others?

"Truth is, I considered it – but while you're a fair … fair to middling … lay–"

"_Fuck you_!"

"You just did, that's how I know you're hardly much. But you're too powerful a witch. Not enough to break my shield unless I'm distracted, but there's something about a tight snatch that's distracting."

x

Now I'm _really _mad, but I have to contain fury if I'm going to live.

Break his shield. Maybe I can't get though his shield – directly, but maybe … I look up into the sky. I can't reach him, but maybe I can reach - the god Leir! _Stupid_, I forgot him! With his help I can –

Lightning arcs across the sky, searing ghostly images onto my eyes. We're high, twelve feet up, it's storming directly over us, he's higher than I am. I'm soaking wet but just maybe–. I reach up, higher, reach outward, _call_. Leir! Tarinis, I'll take anyone's help I can get!

"Any last words before I begin?"

I ignore him. I can't break my concentration. I have to reach higher, call, summon, _reach _for it!

x

"I _said_ – any last words?" He raises the sledgehammer. He's aiming at my knee.

I meet his eyes. "Yes! _Burn in_ _HELL_!"

I yank as hard as I can!

It's so bright I'm blinded, so loud I go deaf and I can't hear my own screams–

x

x

x

The first thing I hear is soft beeping near my right ear but it sounds strange, tinny, like I'm not hearing it right. Considering the Goddess-awful blast which is the last thing I remember hearing, I'm not surprised. I should probably be half deaf.

I'm dry, in throat and body. The latter feels good, the former doesn't. I'm laying on something soft and there's no thunder, just the soft, steady beeping.

I force my eyes open and dad's standing over me to my right, a tower I've known since I was a little girl and he was the center of my universe.

"Hi Princess." His voice is an emotion choked whisper. It's also tinny and worry must show on my face. "Can you hear me?"

"Almost." My voice grates in my throat.

On the white ceiling is a track for a curtain that will arc about the bed to grant privacy; it's tucked out of the way now. I look down and see micro-telemetry transmitters adhered to my arms, undoubtedly all over my body. They transmit their signals to a computer that's better informed about my body than I am.

"You have _slight _eardrum damage; it should fade in a day or so."

"Wha…." I'm so dry my whisper is sliced off. A movement to my left becomes mom. She's holding a cup and long straw. She puts it to my lips and I take a sip of cold water.

I know better than to gulp. When you wake up under the florescent lamps of a hospital room, laying flat on your back, you do not gulp. You sip ... carefully. A few seconds and my mouth and throat are moist enough for me to try again. "What … happened?"

x

I realize I can't feel my body. I can't feel _anything _under the blue blanket that's tented over me, but my uncovered arms are wrapped in gauze. Dad must read the fear in my eyes. As I always say, it's in the eyes. "We gave you plascideral, it's keeping you from feeling the burns."

I look down at the tented blanket, not feeling much better. "That's a sedative." I want to protest, but I'm too tired.

"You have first degree burns over nearly 17 percent of your body and 6 percent second degree burns," dad tells me, his voice tight with emotion he tries to keep from me. Don't bother, dad.

"You were right," It hurts to talk, I fight through it. I want to reach for him but I can't manage it. "He was wrong for me."

"I wish I hadn't been." But he quickly changes the subject. "You're lucky you were being rained on, it helped quite a bit keeping you moist after the initial burn. Cein has a hole eight inches wide through his chest. I'm pretty impressed, I had no idea you were such a marksman." The humor is empty. He doesn't try again. "I also gave you some anticeden," he says, his voice even more constrained.

I don't want to answer - rather not think of it. It's a 'morning after' drug and grateful though I am I feel too ashamed. This was beyond stupid. I'd rather discuss the case. "How long?"

"Just a day."

"No, I mean how long before I can …"

"Take it a day at a time." mom tells me firmly. "You've _nowhere _to go."

I know better than to argue with that tone, especially when I feel so tired. Whatever the plascideral is protecting me from, I don't want to know the details yet.

"Mom, he was of Sovereign."

"We know. We got a warrant this morning, found all his paraphernalia. He couldn't hide them."

Not from a Witch of mom's talent, she means.

x

"You can plan on about a week before you're going to _want _to go back to work," mom continues; between the meds and my own musings I almost miss it. "'Otherworld' is closed, so you can stay home and take care of that beasty you call a cat. I gave Tina the rest of the week off."

"_You_ did? When did we become partners?"

"We're not partners, I'm your boss." I don't even have the strength to answer her smile. "Tina's waiting to see you, I'll change places with her when I'm sure you're all right. I also _spoke_ to Tony DiNozzo. Not only is NCIS covering all this," she waves her hand to indicate the room, "but they'll make good on your fee and then some, enough to keep you solvent until you're back in action."

"Thank him for me." I'm having more trouble keeping focused, that plascideral keeps trying to put me under and I keep fighting.

"You can do that yourself; he wanted to know when you were awake. Meantime, Rising Star is reeling from all that's happened. When we raided Cein's apartment we found evidence he's also one of the principals of Sovereign. We found not only his wand but things even less pleasant. The wand was bone, human. We're still trying to work out whose."

I don't hold out a lot of hope for a fast solution. First they need to figure out how _old _it is. I'm not really anxious to get into it, though I have a bad feeling I'm going to have to.

"The blood matched Stein's, and there was other blood seeped into the bone, even older." That's enough to fill each of us with dreadful revulsion.

"The paraphernalia extended through a 'fire' athame to the bone wand. We're still cataloguing everything, very carefully. You know about charging such things."

How well I know the need for such care. Cein might be dead but the spells he may have placed upon ensorcelled equipment is certainly not. I still have trouble imagining how he lived a double life of such extremes.

"I had Kendra Little brought in to identify some of the things we found. Independent corroboration is required when it's just an agent recognizing the things. I won't bother to tell you what she said about her High Priest being part of Sovereign. I think you can figure much of it out."

x

Sovereign. This is so big a mess. There's going to be a lot of repercussions. It'll rip through the magical community, possibly rip Rising Star apart. I don't even want to think right now just how bad it's going to get.

"What's going to happen?" I can barely stay awake enough to figure out how long I've slept.

"Damned if I know," she admits, not having a word for why she censors my language. That's a parent for you. "We don't have a High Priest and the more that comes out about Mr. Krispy, the sorrier I feel for whoever ultimately takes the job. He'll have a confirmation hearing the likes of which the Senate hasn't managed in two centuries." That's not really what I'd meant but I'll take the answer. I'm too doped up to correct her.

x

"Kendra's up to a billion. April Stein's funeral is tomorrow afternoon. You could be there but you're going to be hurting."

"I'll live with it." Right now I wish I could just focus.

"I know you will. But you'll probably have quite a few visitors later today. I don't know what's going to happen beyond that."

"Get some sleep," dad says. When I turn, he's pulling a hypodermic out of the access shunt of the IV that runs into my arm.

"That's not fair," I can barely manage a sigh. "I was talking."

"No, you were drifting. You'll do better later." He leans down and kisses my forehead. "For now, listen to your doctor and go to sleep."

I'm too tired to be annoyed, but I'd wanted to stay awake. He always did feel he knew what was best for me. Of course, it helps that when it comes to medicine he's always right.

I'm not sure what he used, but I do know its bloody fast. The world is going away and I'm too tired to hold it.

Mom comes down and kisses me too. "Get some sleep."

I try to stifle a yawn, not knowing why I bother. "That sounds … like such a good i…."

Next Episode: Dhampira

Murder sparks a quest for revenge and Su Lin Palmer must stop a friend before she sacrifices her soul.


End file.
